High translational energy adsorption of oxygen on the (111) surface of platinum was examined with electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and molecular beam techniques. EEL spectra indicate that over an incident energy range of 0.2-1.37 eV and on a Pt(111) surface held at 77 K, oxygen adsorbs in an associative chemisorbed state-yielding to the dissociated state only after sufficient substrate heating. Simple direct dissociation appears negligible for all incident kinetic energies studied. At near-zero surface coverages, exclusive population of the peroxolike molecular precursor is observed for adsorption at these high translational energies, while both superoxolike and peroxolike forms are detected for low energy adsorption (0.055 eV). This peculiarity represents evidence that translational energy is effective in differentially populating reaction intermediates and provides better quantification of potential energy barriers to dissociation. We estimate the activation barrier for dissociation from the peroxolike precursor to be approximately 0.29 eV. Initial adsorption probability measurements over a wide range of surface temperatures and high incident kinetic energies corroborate a molecular chemisorption mediated mechanism.