An impact melt origin for Earth’s oldest known evolved rocks

Earth’s oldest evolved (felsic) rocks, the 4.02-billion-year-old Idiwhaa gneisses of the Acasta Gneiss Complex, northwest Canada, have compositions that are distinct from the felsic rocks that typify Earth’s ancient continental nuclei, implying that they formed through a different process. Using phase equilibria and trace element modelling, we show that the Idiwhaa gneisses were produced by partial melting of iron-rich hydrated basaltic rocks (amphibolites) at very low pressures, equating to the uppermost ~3 km of a Hadean crust that was dominantly mafic in composition. The heat required for partial melting at such shallow levels is most easily explained through meteorite impacts. Hydrodynamic impact modelling shows not only that this scenario is physically plausible, but also that the region of shallow partial melting appropriate to formation of the Idiwhaa gneisses would have been widespread. Given the predicted high flux of meteorites in the late Hadean, impact melting may have been the predominant mechanism that generated Hadean felsic rocks

Instrumental Methods for Professional and Amateur Collaborations in Planetary Astronomy

Amateur contributions to professional publications have increased exponentially over the last decades in the field of Planetary Astronomy. Here we review the different domains of the field in which collaborations between professional and amateur astronomers are effective and regularly lead to scientific publications. We discuss the instruments, detectors, softwares and methodologies typically used by amateur astronomers to collect the scientific data in the different domains of interest. Amateur contributions to the monitoring of planets and interplanetary matter, characterization of asteroids and comets, as well as the determination of the physical properties of Kuiper Belt Objects and exoplanets are discussed