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1.
Identification and characterization of small extraterrestrial samples, such as small Antarctic meteorites <~1 cm, require the development of convenient laboratory‐based nondestructive analytical techniques using X‐ray diffraction (XRD). We explore the characterization criteria using an X‐ray diffractometer with a Gandolfi attachment using sub‐mm small fragments and powder aggregates for various kinds of stony meteorites and develop a new analytical technique. We primarily focus on olivine and pyroxene because they are the most abundant and important minerals for stony meteorite classification. A new calibration is performed to estimate the FeO content of the olivine in unequilibrated ordinary chondrites, which is useful for determining the meteorite chemical group irrespective of powder aggregate diameter but dependent on fragment grain diameter. This is because X‐ray intensity absorption is more effective for grains than for powders. Clinoenstatite (Cen) and orthoenstatite (Oen) were distinguished using the presence or absence of the isolated Oen 511 index peak. The method is also applied to other stony meteorites including carbonaceous chondrites and achondrites. The XRD results are consistent with studies based on polished sections involving textural observations by scanning microscope and chemical compositions of the constituent minerals. The new measurement technique presented here is convenient because of its use in air by the laboratory‐based X‐ray diffractometer, which makes it useful for the initial analyses of restricted extraterrestrial sample characterization.  相似文献   

2.
Abstract— The Wold Cottage meteorite (fell, 1795), as is well known, played an important part in meteorites being accepted as stones from the sky. In most cases, the very select group of people who have been privileged to witness any meteorite fall, let alone one as important as Wold Cottage, enjoy a moment's fame but then disappear into obscurity. In this respect, Wold Cottage is very different; Edward Topham, the man who reported the fall and who became the meteorite's publicist, was already very well known for many other reasons. This fact contributed substantially to the evidence provided by his workmen being accepted, following two public exhibitions of the meteorite, the second after sworn testimonies were obtained. Here we explore Topham's background in order to reveal his character, particularly the value he placed on truth. When he passed the meteorite over to a public museum, he did so in the belief that he was acting for the benefit of posterity. At a time when the idea of meteorites being extraterrestrial was still controversial, the Wold Cottage stone vitally prompted the observation that specimens from different parts of the globe closely resembled each other, thus stimulating the crucial chemical analyses which verified that they were indeed related. During its first twenty years on Earth, the Wold Cottage meteorite was a prized specimen, a public attraction and sought after for scientific teaching purposes. In researching Wold Cottage, we have been able to discover information about many of the personalities who were involved in providing and studying the first few meteorites to become available for scientific research. The Wold Cottage story gives an interesting perspective on the cultural scene at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries when there was no clear distinction between the arts and sciences, and meteoritics was the prerogative of often rather flamboyant gentlemen.  相似文献   

3.
Abstract— As the solar system formed, it inherited and perpetuated a rich organic chemistry, the molecular products of which are preserved in ancient extraterrestrial objects such as carbonaceous chondrites. These organic‐rich meteorites provide a valuable and tangible record of the chemical steps taken towards the origin of life in the early solar system. Chondritic organic matter is present in the inorganic meteorite matrix which, in the CM and CI chondrites, contains evidence of alteration by liquid water on the parent asteroid. An unanswered and fundamental question is to what extent did the organic matter and inorganic products of aqueous alteration interact or display interdependence? We have used an organic labelling technique to reveal that the meteoritic organic matter is strongly associated with clay minerals. This association suggests that clay minerals may have had an important trapping and possibly catalytic role in chemical evolution in the early solar system prior to the origin of life on the early Earth.  相似文献   

4.
Very low strengths of interplanetary meteoroids and small asteroids   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  
Abstract– We have assembled data on 13 cases of meteorite falls with accurate tracking data on atmospheric passage. In all cases, we estimate the bulk strength of the object corresponding to its earliest observed or inferred fragmentation in the high atmosphere, and can compare these values with measured strengths of meteorites in the taxonomic class for that fall. In all 13 cases, the strength corresponding to earliest observed or inferred fragmentation is much less than the compressive or tensile strength reported for that class of stony meteorites. Bulk strengths upon atmospheric entry of these bodies are shown to be very low, 0.1 to approximately 1 MPa on first breakup, and maximal strength on breakup as 1–10 MPa corresponding to weak and “crumbly” objects, whereas measured average tensile strength of the similar meteorite classes is about 30 MPa. We find a more random relation between bulk sample strength and sample mass than is suggested by a commonly used empirical power law. We estimate bulk strengths on entry being characteristically of the order of 10?1–10?2 times the tensile strengths of recovered samples. We conclude that pre‐entry, meter‐scale interplanetary meteoroids are typically highly fractured or in some cases rubbly in texture, presumably as a result of their parent bodies’ collisional history, and can break up under stresses of a few megapascals. The weakness of some carbonaceous objects may result from very porous primordial accretional structures, more than fractures. These conclusions have implications for future asteroid missions, sample extraction, and asteroid hazard mitigation.  相似文献   

5.
Extraterrestrial chrome spinel and chromite extracted from the sedimentary rock record are relicts from coarse micrometeorites and rarely meteorites. They are studied to reconstruct the paleoflux of meteorites to the Earth and the collisional history of the asteroid belt. Minor element concentrations of Ti and V, and oxygen isotopic compositions of these relict minerals were used to classify the meteorite type they stem from, and thus to determine the relative meteorite group abundances through time. While coarse sediment-dispersed extraterrestrial chrome-spinel (SEC) grains from ordinary chondrites dominate through the studied time windows in the Phanerozoic, there are exceptions: We have shown that ~467 Ma ago, 1 Ma before the breakup of the L chondrite parent body (LCPB), more than half of the largest (>63 μm diameter) grains were achondritic and originated from differentiated asteroids in contrast to ordinary chondrites which dominated the meteorite flux throughout most of the past 500 Ma. Here, we present a new data set of oxygen isotopic compositions and elemental compositions of 136 grains of a smaller size fraction (32–63 μm) in ~467 Ma old pre-LCPB limestone from the Lynna River section in western Russia, that was previously studied by elemental analysis. Our study constitutes the most comprehensive oxygen isotopic data set of sediment-dispersed extraterrestrial chrome spinel to date. We also introduce a Raman spectroscopy-based method to identify SEC grains and distinguish them from terrestrial chrome spinel with ~97% reliability. We calibrated the Raman method with the established approach using titanium and vanadium concentrations and oxygen isotopic compositions. We find that ordinary chondrites are approximately three times more abundant in the 32–63 μm fraction than achondrites. While abundances of achondrites compared to ordinary chondrites are lower in the 32–63 μm size fraction than in the >63 μm one, achondrites are approximately three times more abundant in the 32–62 μm fraction than they are in the present flux. We find that the sources of SEC grains vary for different grain sizes, mainly as a result of parent body thermal metamorphism. We conclude that the meteorite flux composition ~467 Ma ago ~1 Ma before the breakup of the LCPB was fundamentally different from today and from other time windows studied in the Phanerozoic, but that in contrast to the large size fraction ordinary chondrites dominated the flux in the small size fraction. The high abundance of ordinary chondrites in the studied samples is consistent with the findings based on coarse extraterrestrial chrome-spinel from other time windows.  相似文献   

6.
By virtue of their landing on Earth, meteorites reside in near-Earth object (NEO) orbits prior to their arrival. Thus the population of observable NEOs, in principle, gives important representation of meteorite source bodies. By linking meteorites to NEOs, and linking NEOs to their most likely main-belt source locations, we seek to gain insight into the original Solar System formation locations for different meteorite classes. To forge possible links between meteorites and NEOs, we have developed a three dimensional method for quantitative comparisons between laboratory measurements of meteorites and telescopic measurements of near-Earth objects. We utilize meteorite spectra from the Reflectance Experiment Laboratory (RELAB) database and NEO data from the SpeX instrument on the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF). Using the Modified Gaussian Model (MGM) as a mathematical tool, we treat asteroid and meteorite spectra identically in the calculation of 1-μm and 2-μm Geometric Band Centers and their Band Area Ratios (BARs). Using these identical numerical parameters we quantitatively compare the spectral properties of S-, Sq-, Q- and V-type NEOs with the spectral properties of the meteorites in four classes: H, L, LL and HED. For each NEO spectrum, we assign a set of probabilities for it being related to each of these four meteorite classes. Our NEO-meteorite correlation probabilities are then convolved with NEO-source region probabilities to yield a final set of meteorite-source region correlations. While the ν6 resonance dominates the delivery for all four meteorite classes, an excess (significant at the 2.1-sigma level) source region signature is found for the H chondrites through the 3:1 mean motion resonance. This results suggest an H chondrite source with a higher than average delivery preference through the 3:1 resonance. A 3:1 resonance H chondrite source region is consistent with the short cosmic ray exposure ages known for H chondrites.  相似文献   

7.
Meteorite and meteoroid: New comprehensive definitions   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  
Abstract– Meteorites have traditionally been defined as solid objects that have fallen to Earth from space. This definition, however, is no longer adequate. In recent decades, man‐made objects have fallen to Earth from space, meteorites have been identified on the Moon and Mars, and small interplanetary objects have impacted orbiting spacecraft. Taking these facts and other potential complications into consideration, we offer new comprehensive definitions of the terms “meteorite,”“meteoroid,” and their smaller counterparts: A meteoroid is a 10‐μm to 1‐m‐size natural solid object moving in interplanetary space. A micrometeoroid is a meteoroid 10 μm to 2 mm in size. A meteorite is a natural, solid object larger than 10 μm in size, derived from a celestial body, that was transported by natural means from the body on which it formed to a region outside the dominant gravitational influence of that body and that later collided with a natural or artificial body larger than itself (even if it is the same body from which it was launched). Weathering and other secondary processes do not affect an object’s status as a meteorite as long as something recognizable remains of its original minerals or structure. An object loses its status as a meteorite if it is incorporated into a larger rock that becomes a meteorite itself. A micrometeorite is a meteorite between 10 μm and 2 mm in size. Meteorite– “a solid substance or body falling from the high regions of the atmosphere” ( Craig 1849 ); “[a] mass of stone and iron that ha[s] been directly observed to have fallen down to the Earth’s surface” (translated from Cohen 1894 ); “[a] solid bod[y] which came to the earth from space” ( Farrington 1915 ); “A mass of solid matter, too small to be considered an asteroid; either traveling through space as an unattached unit, or having landed on the earth and still retaining its identity” ( Nininger 1933 ); “[a meteoroid] which has reached the surface of the Earth without being vaporized” (1958 International Astronomical Union (IAU) definition, quoted by Millman 1961 ); “a solid body which has arrived on the Earth from outer space” ( Mason 1962 ); “[a] solid bod[y] which reach[es] the Earth (or the Moon, Mars, etc.) from interplanetary space and [is] large enough to survive passage through the Earth’s (or Mars’, etc.) atmosphere” ( Gomes and Keil 1980 ); “[a meteoroid] that survive[s] passage through the atmosphere and fall[s] to earth” ( Burke 1986 ); “a recovered fragment of a meteoroid that has survived transit through the earth’s atmosphere” ( McSween 1987 ); “[a] solid bod[y] of extraterrestrial material that penetrate[s] the atmosphere and reach[es] the Earth’s surface” ( Krot et al. 2003 ).  相似文献   

8.
Abstract— The radicals in the insoluble organic matter (IOM) from the Tagish Lake meteorite were studied by electron paramagnetic resonance and compared to those existing in the Orgueil and Murchison meteorites. As in the Orgueil and Murchison meteorites, the radicals in the Tagish Lake meteorite are heterogeneously distributed and comprise a substantial amount (?42%) of species with a thermally accessible triplet state and with the same singlet‐triplet gap, ΔE ?0.1 eV, as in the Orgueil and Murchison meteorites. These species were identified as diradicaloid moieties. The existence of similar diradicaloid moieties in three different carbonaceous chondrites but not in terrestrial IOM strongly suggests that these moieties could be “fingerprints” of the extraterrestrial origin of meteoritic IOM and markers of its synthetic pathway before its inclusion into a parent body.  相似文献   

9.
Through a combination of aerobraking (drag deceleration) and ablation, meteoroids which enter planetary atmospheres may be slowed sufficiently to soft-land as meteorites. Results of an earlier study suggest that the current 6 mbar atmosphere of Mars is sufficient to aerobrake significant numbers of small (<10 kg) asteroidal-type meteoroids into survivable, low-velocity (<500 m s−1) impacts with the planet's surface. Since rates of meteorite production depend upon the density of Mars's atmosphere, they must also change as the martian climate changes. However, to date, martian meteorite production has received relatively little attention in the literature Here we expand upon our previous work to study martian meteorite production rates and how they depend upon variations of the martian atmosphere, and to estimate the ranges of mass, velocity and entry-angle that produce meteorites. We find that even the current atmosphere of Mars is sufficient to soft-land significant fractions of incident stony and iron objects, and that these fractions increase dramatically for denser martian atmospheres. Therefore, like impact cratering, meteorite populations may preserve evidence of past martian climates.  相似文献   

10.
Cadmium is a highly volatile element and its abundance in meteorites may help better understand volatility‐controlled processes in the solar nebula and on meteorite parent bodies. The large thermal neutron capture cross section of 113Cd suggests that Cd isotopes might be well suited to quantify neutron fluences in extraterrestrial materials. The aims of this study were (1) to evaluate the range and magnitude of Cd concentrations in magmatic iron meteorites, and (2) to assess the potential of Cd isotopes as a neutron dosimeter for iron meteorites. Our new Cd concentration data determined by isotope dilution demonstrate that Cd concentrations in iron meteorites are significantly lower than in some previous studies. In contrast to large systematic variations in the concentration of moderately volatile elements like Ga and Ge, there is neither systematic variation in Cd concentration amongst troilites, nor amongst metal phases of different iron meteorite groups. Instead, Cd is strongly depleted in all iron meteorite groups, implying that the parent bodies accreted well above the condensation temperature of Cd (i.e., ≈650 K) and thus incorporated only minimal amounts of highly volatile elements. No Cd isotope anomalies were found, whereas Pt and W isotope anomalies for the same iron meteorite samples indicate a significant fluence of epithermal and higher energetic neutrons. This observation demonstrates that owing to the high Fe concentrations in iron meteorites, neutron capture mainly occurs at epithermal and higher energies. The combined Cd‐Pt‐W isotope results from this study thus demonstrate that the relative magnitude of neutron capture‐induced isotope anomalies is strongly affected by the chemical composition of the irradiated material. The resulting low fluence of thermal neutrons in iron meteorites and their very low Cd concentrations make Cd isotopes unsuitable as a neutron dosimeter for iron meteorites.  相似文献   

11.
Abstract— The remarkable fact about the Mazapil meteorite is that it fell on the same night, in 1885, that the Andromedid meteor shower underwent a spectacular outburst. The simultaneity of these two events has driven speculation ever since. From ?1886 to ?1950 the circumstances of the Mazapil fall were taken, by a number of researchers, as the paradigm that demonstrated the fact that comets were actually swarms of meteoritic boulders. Beginning ?1950, however, most researchers began to adopted the stance that the timing of the Mazapil fall was nothing more than pure coincidence. The reason behind this change in interpretation stemmed from, amongst other factors, the fact that none of the prominent annual meteor showers could be clearly shown to deliver meteorites. Also, with the introduction of the icy‐conglomerate model for cometary nuclei, by F. Whipple in the early 1950s, it became increasingly clear that only exceptional circumstances would allow for the presence of large meteoritic bodies in cometary streams. Further, by the mid 1960s it had been shown that meteorites could, in fact, be delivered to the Earth from the main belt asteroid region via gravitational resonances. With the removal of the dynamical “barrier” against the delivery of meteorites from the asteroid region, the idea that the Mazapil meteorite could have been part of the Andromedid stream fell into complete disfavor. This being said, we nonetheless present the results of a study concerning the possible properties of the parent object to the Mazapil meteorite based upon the assumption that it was a member of the Andromedid stream. This study is presented to illustrate the point that while cometary showers do not yield meteorites on the ground, this does not, in fact, substantiate the argument that no meteoritic bodies reside in cometary streams. Indeed, we find no good reason to suppose that an object with the characteristics of the Mazapil meteorite could not have been delivered from the Andromedid stream. However, we argue that upon the basis of the actual reported observations and upon the scientific maxim of minimized hypothesis and least assumption it must be concluded that the timing of the fall of the Mazapil meteorite and the occurrence of the Andromedid outburst were purely coincidental.  相似文献   

12.
Abstract— A team from EUROMET (a joint initiative of scientific institutions in Europe interested in meteorites) was sent for the first time to Antarctica in the 1990/91 season to undertake a systematic search for meteorites. The project was organised within the framework of the Italian Antarctic Program (Programma Nationale di Richerche in Antartide, PNRA). The search was carried out in the vicinity of Frontier Mountain (North Victoria Land) and 256 meteorite fragments were discovered, most of which were wind-blown across the blue-ice field to the NE of Frontier Mountain and finally caught in an ice depression about 5 km to the N. The larger meteorites which remained on the ice surface from which they were uncovered may have been transported down to the mountain edge where they have subsequently been destroyed or covered in debris. A search for meteorites at neighbouring Sequence Hills, where similar glaciological conditions as at Frontier Mountain exist, proved unsuccessful. At this location the surface of the blue ice in the valleys with suspected meteorite concentrations was covered by meltwater lakes.  相似文献   

13.
Morocco is known for the high number of meteorites collected in its territory, including finds and falls. This is explained by the large size of the Moroccan Sahara, the guarantee of security in this desert, and the large community of well-trained Moroccan hunters and nomads who roam through it. Despite this richness, most meteorites collected in Morocco are sold abroad and exported. The exportation of meteorites as well as other geoheritage samples such as fossils and minerals was not completely legal or illegal as there was no dedicated regulation. Since 2000, the APPGM (Association pour la Protection du Patrimoine Géologique du Maroc) a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) dedicated to the preservation of the Moroccan geoheritage began working with the Moroccan Geological Survey, on a draft of a specific law dedicated to geoheritage. It was fundamental to benefit from the experience of other countries with a high number of meteorites where exportation is not allowed and that are losing their meteorites to illegal exportation. The author recommended a win-win regulation that would allow the legal collection and exportation of meteorites under clear rules benefiting both hunters and scientists but also the country. In 2014, Morocco updated its law regarding mines. One article cited geoheritage as including fossils, minerals, and meteorites and mentioned that their collection and exportation would be regulated by decree. In 2019, the Moroccan Geological Survey and APPGM prepared the application decree of this article that has been discussed and approved by the Moroccan government and implemented in February 2020. This situation is unique in the region as well as compared to the other countries with a high potential of meteorites collection. Meteorite researchers and collectors all over the world should be aware of this regulation in Morocco to make their acquisitions legal. They should request a copy of the “End of the work” from local traders, the receipt from the Geological survey, and the certificate of export from customs. It is an important ethical and scientific responsibility of our community.  相似文献   

14.
Organic matter in astromaterials can provide important information for understanding the chemistry of our solar system and the prebiotic conditions of the early Earth. However, once astromaterials reach the Earth's surface, they can be readily contaminated through contact with the Earth's surface as well as during processing and curation. Here, we investigate how typical handling and curation materials interact with meteorite specimens by documenting hydrophobic organic compound contamination in the laboratory environment and on materials that might be used for their collection and storage. We use gas chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis of soluble organic compounds in dichloromethane extracts of these materials to gain insights into what materials and methods are best for the collection and curation of astromaterials. Our results have implications for how extraterrestrial samples—especially those containing significant intrinsic organic matter—are handled and curated to preserve them in their most pristine states. Following recommendations of other researchers in the area of returned sample curation, we advocate for a thorough investigation into the materials used in handling and curation of meteorites to create a contamination baseline to inform soluble organic analyses on astromaterials and enable the discrimination of terrestrial and extraterrestrial compounds.  相似文献   

15.
Abstract– We report the use of Doppler weather radar as a tool for locating meteorites, both at the time of a fall and from archived radar data. This asset is especially useful for meteorite recovery as it can provide information on the whereabouts of falling meteorites in “dark flight” portion of their descent where information on their flight paths cannot be discerned from more traditional meteorite location techniques such as eyewitness accounts. Weather radar data can provide information from detection in three distinct regimes: (A) direct detection of the rapidly moving, optically bright fireball by distant radars, (B) detection of falling debris to include hand‐sample sized rocks, and (C) detection of dust produced by detonation events that can occur tens of minutes and many kilometers laterally removed from the actual fireball locality. We present examples of each, as well as comparisons against man‐made debris from a re‐entering Soyuz rocket and the Stardust Sample Return Capsule. The use of Doppler weather radar as a supplement to traditional meteorite recovery methods holds the promise of improving both the speed and total number of meteorite recoveries, thereby increasing the number of freshly fallen meteorites for scientific study.  相似文献   

16.
For the first time, this paper presents to the planetary scientists' community the catalog of the meteorite collection preserved at the Italian Museum of Planetary Sciences (Museo Italiano di Scienze Planetarie, henceforth MISP) in Prato (Italy). Founded in 2005, MISP is a type specimen official repository approved by the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society. It represents one of the few museums worldwide entirely devoted to planetary sciences. The catalog of its meteorite collection encompasses 430 meteorites for a total of 1536 specimens, including 291 thin sections, 184 thick sections, and 278 specimens that MISP has classified. Furthermore, MISP is currently classifying 57 other meteorites. Some samples were found during meteorite recovery expeditions in hot deserts, promoted by MISP in collaboration with diverse Italian universities and national research institutions. MISP also keeps an impact rocks collection comprising 257 samples. In a country like Italy, where most of the collected meteorites are housed in museums whose catalogs are not available online, the publication of the MISP meteorite collection catalog, together with the catalog of the impact rocks collection, represents not only a significant scientific primary source but also a remarkable tool for disseminating meteoritics to nonresearch audiences in educational activities and citizen science projects.  相似文献   

17.
Analytical studies are reported here for two cosmogenic effects due to low energy particles in extraterrestrial samples:
  1. Formation of latent chemically etchable tracks in crystalline materials due to solid state damage as a result of ionisation losses suffered by multicharged cosmic ray nuclei, and
  2. Production of low threshold isotopes due to nuclear interactions of solar cosmic ray particles.
The present analytical treatment is different from those previously reported and is more directly applicable to recent studies of low energy cosmogenic effects in meteorites and in lunar samples. We consider irradiation of ellipsoidal rocks in space and on the Moon. In the latter case, different irradiation geometries corresponding to different burials in the regolith are also considered. It is shown that results of irradiation of an object on the surface of a parent body differ from that of an object in free space in more complex manner than a uniform reduction by a factor of two due to the change over from 2π to 4π irradiation. Isocontours for ‘tracks’ or ‘isotopes’ are found to be markedly different in the two cases. Thus, the irradiation geometry must be explicitly taken into account in interpreting low-energy cosmogenic effects in lunar rocks. Simultaneous analyses of tracks and radioisotopes of different half-lives should allow one to establish principal irradiation geometries both for meteorites and lunar samples.  相似文献   

18.
The abundances, distributions, enantiomeric ratios, and carbon isotopic compositions of amino acids in two fragments of the Aguas Zarcas CM2 type carbonaceous chondrite fall and a fragment of the CM2 Murchison meteorite were determined via liquid chromatography time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry and gas chromatography isotope ratio mass spectrometry. A suite of two‐ to six‐carbon aliphatic primary amino acids was identified in the Aguas Zarcas and Murchison meteorites with abundances ranging from ~0.1 to 158 nmol/g. The high relative abundances of α‐amino acids found in these meteorites are consistent with a Strecker‐cyanohydrin synthesis on these meteorite parent bodies. Amino acid enantiomeric and carbon isotopic measurements in both fragments of the Aguas Zarcas meteorites indicate that both samples experienced some terrestrial protein amino acid contamination after their fall to Earth. In contrast, similar measurements of alanine in Murchison revealed that this common protein amino acid was both racemic (D ≈ L) and heavily enriched in 13C, indicating no measurable terrestrial alanine contamination of this meteorite. Carbon isotope measurements of two rare non‐proteinogenic amino acids in the Aguas Zarcas and Murchison meteorites, α‐aminoisobutyric acid and D‐ and L‐isovaline, also fall well outside the typical terrestrial range, confirming they are extraterrestrial in origin. The detections of non‐terrestrial L‐isovaline excesses of ~10–15% in both the Aguas Zarcas and Murchison meteorites, and non‐terrestrial L‐glutamic acid excesses in Murchison of ~16–40% are consistent with preferential enrichment of circularly polarized light generated L‐amino acid excesses of conglomerate enantiopure crystals during parent body aqueous alteration and provide evidence of an early solar system formation bias toward L‐amino acids prior to the origin of life.  相似文献   

19.
We report on the first meteorite search campaign in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The geology and proximity of our search region suggest that it is the north‐western extension of the Oman meteorite fields. We found 26 ordinary chondrites, bringing the total number of official meteorites from the UAE to 28. The campaign was organized and conducted in close cooperation with the UAE government and the main masses of the meteorites remained in the country where they will become part of an exhibition. The bulk composition of five meteorite and three soil samples indicates an uptake of U, Mo, Sr, Ba, Li, and Pb from the soil into the meteorites during terrestrial weathering. Terrestrial ages determined from 14C decay of 21 meteorites range from recent falls to 24.4 ka, with two meteorites having >37 ka and approximately 39 ka, respectively. Weak correlations between weathering degree, meteorite bulk chemical composition, and terrestrial age suggest highly localized weathering conditions, possibly related to abundant occurrences of sabkhas in the search region.  相似文献   

20.
Abstract— We present noble gas analyses of sediment‐dispersed extraterrestrial chromite grains recovered from ?470 Myr old sediments from two quarries (Hällekis and Thorsberg) and of relict chromites in a coeval fossil meteorite from the Gullhögen quarry, all located in southern Sweden. Both the sediment‐dispersed grains and the meteorite Gullhögen 001 were generated in the L‐chondrite parent body breakup about 470 Myr ago, which was also the event responsible for the abundant fossil meteorites previously found in the Thorsberg quarry. Trapped solar noble gases in the sediment‐dispersed chromite grains have partly been retained during ?470 Myr of terrestrial residence and despite harsh chemical treatment in the laboratory. This shows that chromite is highly retentive for solar noble gases. The solar noble gases imply that a sizeable fraction of the sediment‐dispersed chromite grains are micrometeorites or fragments thereof rather than remnants of larger meteorites. The grains in the oldest sediment beds were rapidly delivered to Earth likely by direct injection into an orbital resonance in the inner asteroid belt, whereas grains in younger sediments arrived by orbital decay due to Poynting‐Robertson (P‐R) drag. The fossil meteorite Gullhögen 001 has a low cosmic‐ray exposure age of ?0.9 Myr, based on new He and Ne production rates in chromite determined experimentally. This age is comparable to the ages of the fossil meteorites from Thorsberg, providing additional evidence for very rapid transfer times of material after the L‐chondrite parent body breakup.  相似文献   

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