8 research outputs found

    Recombent and Reclined Folds of the Mt. Cube Area New Hampshire - Vermont

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    Guidebook for field trips in central New Hampshire and contiguous areas: 63rd annual meeting October 2 and 3, 1971 Concord, New Hampshire: Trip A-

    Eucrite Impact Melt NWA 5218 - Evidence for a Large Crater on Vesta

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    Northwest Africa (NWA) 5218 is a 76 g achondrite that is classified as a eucrite [1]. However, an initial classification [2] describes it as a "eucrite shock-melt breccia...(in which) large, partially melted cumulate basalt clasts are set in a shock melt flow...". We explore the petrology of this clast-bearing impact melt rock (Fig. 1), which could be a characteristic lithology at large impact craters on asteroid Vesta [3]. Methods: Optical microscopy, scanning electronmicroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy were used on a thin section (Fig. 1) for petrographic characterization. The impact melt composition was determined by 20 m diameter defocused-beam analyses with a Cameca SX-100 electron microprobe. The data from 97 spots were corrected for mineral density effects [4]. Constituent mineral phases were analyzed with a focusedbeam. Bidirectonal visible and near-infrared (VNIR) and biconical FT-IR reflectance spectra were measured on the surface of a sample slab on its central melt area and on an eucrite clast, and from 125-500 m and 100 m are coarse-grained with equigranular ~1 mm size plagioclase, quartz, and clinopyroxene (Fig. 1). Single crystals of chromite, ilmenite, zircon, Ca-Mg phosphate, Fe-metal, and troilite are embedded in the melt. Polymineralic clasts are mostly compositionally similar to the above mentioned larger clasts but scarce granulitic fragments are observed as well

    Differentiation processes in FeO-rich asteroids revealed by the achondrite Lewis Cliff 88763

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    International audienceOlivine-dominated (70-80 modal %) achondrite meteorite Lewis Cliff (LEW) 88763 originated from metamorphism and limited partial melting of a FeO-rich parent body. The meteorite experienced some alteration on Earth, evident from subchondritic Re/Os, and redistribution of rhenium within the sample. LEW 88763 is texturally similar to winonaites, has a Delta O-17 value of -1.19 +/- 0.10 parts per thousand, and low bulk-rock Mg/(Mg+Fe) (0.39), similar to the FeO-rich cumulate achondrite Northwest Africa (NWA) 6693. The similar bulk-rock major-, minor-, and trace-element abundances of LEW 88763, relative to some carbonaceous chondrites, including ratios of Pd/Os, Pt/Os, Ir/Os, and Os-187/Os-188 (0.1262), implies a FeO-and volatile-rich precursor composition. Lack of fractionation of the rare earth elements, but a factor of approximately two lower highly siderophile element abundances in LEW 88763, compared with chondrites, implies limited loss of Fe-Ni-S melts during metamorphism and anatexis. These results support the generation of high Fe/Mg, sulfide, and/or metal-rich partial melts from FeO-rich parent bodies during partial melting. In detail, however, LEW 88763 cannot be a parent composition to any other meteorite sample, due to highly limited silicate melt loss (0 to << 5%). As such, LEW 88763 represents the least-modified FeO-rich achondrite source composition recognized to date and is distinct from all other meteorites. LEW 88763 should be reclassified as an anomalous achondrite that experienced limited Fe, Ni-FeS melt loss. Lewis Cliff 88763, combined with a growing collection of FeO-rich meteorites, such as brachinites, brachinite-like achondrites, the Graves Nunataks (GRA) 06128/9 meteorites, NWA 6693, and Tafassasset, has important implications for understanding the initiation of planetary differentiation. Specifically, regardless of precursor compositions, partial melting and differentiation processes appear to be similar on asteroidal bodies spanning a range of initial oxidation states and volatile contents

    Tellurium isotopic composition of the early solar system - A search for effects resulting from stellar nucleosynthesis, <sup>126</sup>Sn decay and mass- independent fractionation

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    New precise Te isotope data acquired by multiple collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICPMS) are presented for selected extraterrestrial and terrestrial materials. Bulk samples of carbonaceous, ordinary and enstatite chondrites as well as the metal and sulfide phases of iron meteorites were analyzed to search for nucleosynthetic isotope anomalies and to find evidence of formerly live 126Sn, which decays to 126Te with a half-life of 234,500 yr. None of the meteorites show evidence of mass dependent Te isotope fractionations larger than 2ā€° for Ī“ 126/128Te. Following internal normalization of the data to 125Te/128Te, the Te isotope ratios of all analyzed meteorites were found to be identical to a terrestrial standard, within uncertainties. This provides evidence that the regions of the solar disk that were sampled during accretion of the meteorite parent bodies were well mixed and homogeneous on a large scale, with respect to Te isotopes. The data acquired for bulk carbonaceous chondrites indicate that the initial 126Sn/ 118Sn ratio of the solar system was -5, but this is dependent on the assumption that no redistribution of Sn and Te occurred since the start of the solar system. Five Archean sedimentary sulfides that display both mass dependent and mass-independent isotope effects for S yield internally normalized Te isotope data, which indicate that mass-independent Te isotope effects are absent. The mass dependent fractionations in these samples are constrained to be less than ~1ā€° for Ī“126/128Te

    Petrogenesis of Miller Range 07273, a New Type of Anomalous melt breccia: Implications for Impact Effects on the H chondrite Asteroid

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    Miller Range 07273 is a chondritic melt breccia that contains clasts of equilibrated ordinary chondrite set in a fineā€grained (Ī¼m), largely crystalline, igneous matrix. Data indicate that MIL was derived from the H chondrite parent asteroid, although it has an oxygen isotope composition that approaches but falls outside of the established H group. MIL also is distinctive in having low porosity, coneā€like shapes for coarse metal grains, unusual internal textures and compositions for coarse metal, a matrix composed chiefly of clinoenstatite and omphacitic pigeonite, and troilite veining most common in coarse olivine and orthopyroxene. These features can be explained by a model involving impact into a porous target that produced brief but intense heating at high pressure, a sudden pressure drop, and a slower drop in temperature. Olivine and orthopyroxene in chondrule clasts were the least melted and the most deformed, whereas matrix and troilite melted completely and crystallized to nearly strainā€free minerals. Coarse metal was largely but incompletely liquefied, and matrix silicates formed by the breakdown during melting of albitic feldspar and some olivine to form pyroxene at high pressure (\u3e3 GPa, possibly to ~15ā€“19 GPa) and temperature (\u3e1350 Ā°C, possibly to ā‰„2000 Ā°C). The higher pressures and temperatures would have involved backā€reaction of highā€pressure polymorphs to pyroxene and olivine upon cooling. Silicates outside of melt matrix have compositions that were relatively unchanged owing to brief heating duration
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