laser probe 40ar 39ar studies of the peace river shocked l6 chondrite abstract samples of matrix and melt glass from the shocked l6 chondrite peace river have been subjected to 40ar 39ar analysis using both stepped heating and localised outgassing by a laser probe stepped heating studies of three distinct samples of matrix gave indistinguishable and unusually well defined low temperature 40ar 39ar plateaux corresponding to an age of 450 30 ma in an attempt to investigate whether or not this plateau age is meaningful i e the time of a major collision event involving the parent body or is an artefact resulting from partial degassing during the fragmentation of the parent body which commenced the exposure of peace river to cosmic rays 40 ma ago we have used a laser probe to analyse ar from single 80 m diameter laser pits which release gas from a few micrograms of sample on this scale no areas have ages younger than the plateau age supporting the view that it is not an artefact measurements on the melt glass gave variable and meaningless ages in some cases greater than the age of the solar system due to retention of 40ar and loss of k during melting followed by rapid quenching this observation indicates the danger of attempts to date impact melt glass directly the observation that argon has been retained by the glass and lost by the matrix can be understood in terms of a range of plausible annealing histories

isotope systematics and shock wave metamorphism i u pb in zircon titanite and monazite shocked experimentally up to 59 gpa this study reports the first u pb isotope analyses on experimentally shocked zircon titanite and monazite extracted from proterozoic granitoid rocks in all three types of minerals shock waves produce drastic changes in the crystal lattices causing strong lowering of birefringence turbidization and decolorization of the individual grains moreover x ray patterns indicate transition of the crystals into polycrystalline aggregates of 10 5 mm block size precisely dated grains with concordant or nearly concordant ages were embedded in kbr and shocked at 35 47 5 and 59 gpa u pb isotope analyses on these grains show that shock metamorphism does not fractionate pb isotopes within the analytical precision of 0 1 as far as chemical fractionation is concerned there is no difference in degree of concordancy between shocked and unshocked monazite and small degrees 2 of relative upb fractionation in shocked zircon and titanite are due to time integrated pb loss and not to the shock experiment in consequence the data document that shock wave metamorphism alone does not measurably effect the u pb chronometer questioning the view that lower intercept ages of discordant u pb data reflect shock induced re equilibration of the chronometer in moderately to highly shocked rapidly cooling rocks

in situ sims u pb dating of phanerozoic apatite with low u and high common pb abstract apatite is a common accessory mineral in various igneous metamorphic and sedimentary rocks it has strong potential to provide important information for geochronology and petrogenesis however precise u th pb dating of apatite especially young samples is difficult due to low abundances of u and less radiogenic pb posing significant challenges for accurate common pb correction an additional issue is the lack of suitable apatite to serve as a standard for in situ analyses here we present both analytical and data reduction protocols for sims in situ u pb analyses on apatite with low u and high common lead with nw 1 apatite as the u pb age standard which was separated from 1160 ma carbonatite in the prairie lake complex in canada apatites from the kovdor carbonatite in the kola peninsula which contains low u mostly 2 5 ppm and high common pb 20 80 yielded weighted average 207pb corrected u pb ages of 375 13 ma kv 8 and kv 18 and 377 11 ma kv a respectively apatites from the quruqtagh ultramafic intrusion in nw china containing low u 2 3 ppm and high common pb 70 yield 207pb corrected u pb age of 805 21 ma the cenozoic durango apatite was dated at 31 2 ma all these new apatite u pb ages are indistinguishable from independently known age constraints to within 2 4 our results demonstrate that a u pb age can be accurately and precisely measured for apatite with low u 50 by sims with a suitable standard and a careful choice of common pb composition

numerical modelling of impact melt production in porous rocks abstract melting of rocks by impact is a fundamental geologic process that results from shock wave compression and subsequent release from high pressure shock melted material is found in many terrestrial craters however most impact craters in sedimentary targets which are typically porous have been reported as containing significantly less melt than craters in nonporous crystalline targets to investigate the effect of porosity on shock melting we present a numerical modelling approach that combines a porosity compaction model with an equation of state for the solid component to demonstrate that our model accurately calculates shock pressures in porous materials we compare these results with hugoniot data for porous quartzite coconino sandstone and calcite our results show that the presence of porosity significantly reduces the critical pressure required for melting which enhances melt production we show that this effect is reduced but not totally diminished by faster shock wave decay in porous materials so that all other things being equal impact melt production is greater when target porosity is higher we conducted a series of simulations of impacts into targets of different material composition quartzite calcite dunite and porosity of up to 50 and varied the impact velocity between 6 and 50 km s we found a significant increase in the production of impact melt with increasing velocity in agreement with several previous studies and quantify the net increase in impact melt due to target porosity for the nonporous case our results agree well with estimated melt volumes at terrestrial impact craters over a range in size 7 90 km in diameter in porous targets our results contradict the widely cited observation of a melt deficiency in sedimentary target craters however our model results agree well with recently revised estimates of melt volumes at terrestrial craters formed in sedimentary or mixed sedimentary and crystalline targets this further strengthens the view that substantial volumes of impact melt should be produced during impacts into porous sedimentary targets and that the apparent paucity of impact melt in some sedimentary target craters may be due to difficulties in recognizing impact melts derived from sedimentary rocks

phosphate minerals in ll chondrites a record of the action of fluids during metamorphism on ordinary chondrite parent bodies ordinary chondrites contain two phosphate minerals merrillite and chlorapatite both of which are secondary minerals that developed in response to metamorphism on the chondrite parent bodies we have studied the phosphate mineralogy of four ll chondrites of petrologic types 3 9 6 in order to determine the petrogenesis of the two minerals and interpret the conditions under which they formed characterization of merrillite and apatite includes textural observations mineral compositions determined by electron probe microanalysis and ion microprobe analyses of trace element and volatile anion elemental abundances initial formation of phosphate minerals during mild metamorphism to petrologic type 4 conditions resulted in oxidation of p that was originally incorporated in metal and growth of merrillite as inclusions within metal grains subsequent development of both phosphate minerals occurred in response to diffusional equilibration possible precipitation from fluids as well as replacement reactions resulting from interactions with fluids porosity and vein filling textures in both merrillite and chlorapatite as well as textures indicating replacement of merrillite by chlorapatite support a model in which fluid played a significant role and suggest an interface coupled dissolution reprecipitation mechanism during metasomatism some associations of phosphate minerals with chromite plagioclase assemblages suggest that phosphate minerals could also be related to impact processes either as precipitation from an impact melt or as a result of interactions with a fluid or vapor derived from an impact melt fluid compositions may have been water bearing initially at low temperatures of metamorphism but later evolved to become halogen rich and very dry late stage halogen rich fluids that dominated during cooling of ll chondrite material may have been derived from vaporization of partial melts in the interior of the parent body overall the ll chondrite parent body underwent a complex chemical evolution in which metasomatism played a significant role

coherent and subsequent incoherent ringwoodite growth in olivine of shocked l6 chondrites abstract pervasive replacement of original olivine grains by ringwoodite adjacent to a shock melt vein of yamato 791384 l6 chondrite was observed with a feg sem in these olivines we observed three distinct olivine ringwoodite textures arranged in a spatially successive arrangement from the wall of the shock melt vein into the olivine grains 1 polycrystalline ringwoodite 2 oriented several sets of ringwoodite lamellae and 3 oriented single lamellae tem images show that the polycrystalline and oriented several sets of lamellae parts consist of polycrystalline ringwoodite indicating that phase transformation from olivine to ringwoodite is controlled by incoherent growth mechanism on the other hand the set of oriented single lamellae consists of thin ringwoodite platelets

origin of a unique impact melt rock the l chondrite ramsdorf we have studied a unique impact melt rock the ramsdorf l chondrite using optical and scanning microscopy and electron microprobe analysis ramsdorf contains not only clast poor impact melt begemann and wlotzka 1969 but also a chondritic portion 60 g with what appears at low magnification to be a normal well defined chondritic texture however detailed studies at high magnification show that 90 vol of the crystals in the chondritic portion were largely melted by the impact the chondrules lack normal microtextures and are ghosts of the original features the only relics from the precursor chondrules are olivine crystals which have the highest melting temperature 1620 c pyroxene rich chondrules were so extensively melted that no phenocrysts were preserved and the melt crystallized in situ before significant mixing with exterior olivine rich melts fine grained pyroxene chondrule ghosts have sharper boundaries with the matrix than porphyritic olivine and pyroxene chondrule ghosts probably because pyroxene rich melts are significantly more viscous complex textures that formed by injection of melt along cracks and fractures in relic olivines suggest that the chondritic portion of ramsdorf formed directly from petrologic type 3 4 material by strong shock we infer that ramsdorf was largely melted by shock pressures of 75 90 gpa and that chondrule ghosts and relic olivine phenocrysts were locally preserved by rapid cooling quenching was not due to the addition of cold clasts into the melt but to heterogeneous shock heating that only caused internal melting of large olivines and pyroxenes ramsdorf appears to be one of the most heavily shocked meteorites that has retained some trace of its original texture

transformation textures mechanisms of formation of high pressure minerals in shock melt veins of l6 chondrites and pressure temperature conditions of the shock events the high pressure polymorphs of olivine pyroxene and plagioclase in or adjacent to shock melt veins smvs in two l6 chondrites sahara 98222 and yamato 74445 were investigated to clarify the related transformation mechanisms and to estimate the pressure temperature conditions of the shock events wadsleyite and jadeite were identified in sahara 98222 wadsleyite ringwoodite majorite akimotoite jadeite and lingunite naalsi3o8 hollandite were identified in yamato 74445 wadsleyite nucleated along the grain boundaries and fractures of original olivine the nucleation and growth of ringwoodite occurred along the grain boundaries of original olivine and as intracrystalline ringwoodite lamellae within original olivine the nucleation and growth of majorite took place along the grain boundaries or fractures in original enstatite jadeite containing assemblages have complicated textures containing particle like stringer like and polycrystalline like phases coexistence of lingunite and jadeite containing assemblages shows a vein like texture we discuss these transformation mechanisms based on our textural observations and chemical composition analyses the shock pressure and temperature conditions in the smvs of these meteorites were also estimated based on the mineral assemblages in the smvs and in comparison with static high pressure experimental results as follows 13 16 gpa 1900 c for sahara 98222 and 17 24 gpa 2100 c for yamato 74445

high pressure phases in a shock induced melt vein of the tenham l6 chondrite constraints on shock pressure and duration abstract the microtexture and mineralogy of a 580 m wide melt vein in the tenham l6 chondrite were investigated using field emission scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy to better understand the shock conditions the melt vein consists of a matrix of silicate plus metal sulfide grains that crystallized from immiscible melts and sub rounded fragments of the host chondrite that have been entrained in the melt and transformed to polycrystalline high pressure silicates the melt vein matrix contains two distinct textures and mineral assemblages corresponding to the vein edge and interior the 30 m wide vein edge consists of vitrified silicate perovskite ringwoodite akimotoite majorite with minor metal sulfide the 520 m wide vein interior consists of majorite magnesiowustite with irregular metal sulfide blebs although these mineral assemblages are distinctly different the pressure stabilities of both assemblages are consistent with crystallization from similar pressure conditions the melt vein edge crystallized at about 23 25 gpa and the vein interior crystallized at about 21 25 gpa this relatively narrow pressure range suggests that the melt vein either crystallized at a constant equilibrium shock pressure of 25 gpa or during a relatively slow pressure release using a finite element heat transfer program to model the thermal history of this melt vein during shock we estimate that the time required to quench this 580 m wide vein was 40 ms because the entire vein contains high pressure minerals that crystallized from the melt the shock pressure duration was at least 40 ms using a synthetic hugoniot for tenham and assuming that the sample experienced a peak shock pressure of 25 gpa near the impact site we estimate that the tenham parent body experienced an impact with collision velocity 2 km s based on a one dimensional planar impact model we estimate that the projectile size was 150 m in thickness

39ar40ar age and petrology of chico large scale impact melting on the l chondrite parent body our studies of the 105 kg chico l chondrite show that it contains 60 impact melt and the largest volume of impact melt recognized in stony meteorites we suggest that it is part of a much larger dike complex that formed when chondritic impact melt was intruded into host chondrite during a large if not catastrophic impact on the l chondrite parent body at about 0 5 ga petrologic and 39ar 40ar dating studies were made on several lithologies including the massive melt zone host chondrite and melt chondrite boundaries for the purpose of studying the melting and thermal histories associated with impacts on small bodies and their effects on the k ar chronometer the chondritic host is shocked to stage s6 and contains pockets and veins of melt there are no unmelted clasts in the interior of the melt coalesced metal troilite nodules reach up to 2 cm in size melt near the contact with the host chondrite contains numerous clasts and quenched more rapidly metal troilite textures suggest cooling rates of 0 1 c s in the interior of the melt dike during crystallization secondary kamacite rims indicate cooling at 0 01 1 c y over the range of 700 500 c consistent with an impact heated volume of up to a kilometer in thickness compositions of olivines and pyroxenes are generally similar in melt and chondritic host reflecting rapid crystallization not metamorphic equilibration the interior melt shows an overall depletion in k whereas the melt near the boundary is enriched in k the 39ar 40ar release spectra during stepwise heating of both melt and chondrite samples can be divided into two parts based on ar diffusion properties and k ca ratios the low temperature high k ca phase of both melt and host chondrite show ages of 0 54 0 78 ga ages of the high temperature low k ca phase of the melt are comparable or higher 0 61 1 35 ga whereas those of the host chondrite are even higher 0 87 1 86 ga due to lesser degrees of degassing isochron plots for several melt samples suggest an age of 0 53 ga and the presence of variable amounts of excess 40ar not completely degassed by the impact even this age however is significantly higher than the previously reported rb sr isochron age of 0 467 015 ga the apparent retention of radiogenic 40ar in the chico impact melt in spite of its relatively large size absence of clasts and moderately slow cooling rate below 700 c raises questions as to the reliability of using melts for 39ar 40ar dating of meteoritic impact events

asteroid breakup linked to the great ordovician biodiversification event the great ordovician biodiversification event coincides 470 million years ago with the break up of a large asteroid and the resultant frequent bombardment of earth with asteroid fragments

a microstructural investigation of natural lamellar ringwoodite in olivine of the shocked sixiangkou chondrite abstract olivine adjacent to the shock produced veins of sixiangkou meteorite contains several sets of ringwoodite lamellae nucleated and grown along planar fractures in olivine these lamellae consist of two generations of crystallite aggregates of ringwoodite and show features of incoherent nucleation and growth of ringwoodite along fractures of olivine the lamellae are of zonal fe mg distribution characterized as fe rich rim and mg rich interior it indicates that the intracrystalline transformation of olivine to ringwoodite proceeds through fe mg interdiffusion during growth of ringwoodite the formation of the lamellae favors a fracture involved phase transformation mechanism firstly a thin layer of crushed or distorted olivine along a gliding plane of a fracture was produced and then transformed into the first generation of crystallite layer of ringwoodite subsequently the second generation of relatively coarse grained ringwoodite grew on both interfaces of the firstly formed thin layer of ringwoodite this study brings forward a new observation of intracrystalline olivine ringwoodite transformation in addition to other mechanisms since mechanical deformations resulting in planar fractures are common in olivine of terrestrial mantle rocks this proposed mechanism could play an important role in the subducting lithospheric slabs

formation of high pressure minerals in shocked l6 chondrite yamato 791384 constraints on shock conditions and parent body size we have studied the high pressure phases observed in yamato 791384 l6 chondrite host meteorite mainly consists of olivine pyroxenes and plagioclase glass mineral fragments observed in the veins and the vein margin region of the host meteorite were partially or totally transformed into high pressure phases ringwoodite majorite akimotoite naalsi3o8 hollandite and jadeite matrix of the shock vein contains majorite pyrope solid solution the spatial distribution indicates that high pressure phases are present in the shock veins and host rocks adjacent to the shock veins investigation of the high pressure phases revealed that in y791384 fragments and adjacent matrix were subjected to pressures around of 18 23 gpa and the vein experienced temperatures around 2300 c during the shock event ringwoodite lamellae were observed in the host olivine adjacent to the vein kinetic investigation for ringwoodite lamellar growth in olivine indicates that the shocked meteorite experienced the pressure for at least 4 s such long duration of the pressure pulse indicates that the size of the parent body was greater than 10 km

shock effects and argon loss in samples of the leedey l6 chondrite experimentally shocked to 29 70 ga pressures abstract shock recovery experiments between 29 and 70 gpa were made on the leedey l6 chondrite to determine the possible loss of radiogenic ar caused directly by passage of shock waves as opposed to purely thermal loss during prolonged post shock cooling experiments were made in vacuum to prevent shock implantation of terrestrial air and following neutron irradiation the 39 ar 40 ar ratios were measured by stepwise temperature release petrographie examination of experimentally shocked leedey showed predominantly solid state effects in the form of increasing disaggregation of component minerals with increasing shock pressure but very little melting even at the highest shock levels the melting behavior of the minor feldspar phase was difficult to document but likely was complete by the higher shock levels the 39ar 40ar release patterns were complex for both shocked and reference leedey probably because of a natural shock history for the meteorite at ca 3 8 gy the average 39ar 40ar age for shocked leedey decreased with increasing shock levels from essentially no change at 29 gpa to a 20 decrease in age at 60 gpa the feldspar phases degas at lower extraction temperatures and show even greater lowering of 39ar 40ar age with increasing shock pressure the sample shocked at 69 gpa shows less mechanical disruption than samples shocked to lesser pressures and also shows a smaller loss of ar compared to samples shocked at 45 and 60 gpa we conclude that observed ar loss is caused by extensive grain fracturing and heating during shock and that greater ar loss at low extraction temperatures is enhanced by feldspar melting none of the experiments duplicated the magnitude of ar loss commonly seen in naturally shocked materials that lack evidence of pervasive melting we conclude that large scale gas loss in shocked but unmelted samples requires that the materials reside for prolonged periods of time at elevated temperatures in a relatively hot impact formation either inside or outside the crater cavity

a single asteroidal source for extraterrestrial ordovician chromite grains from sweden and china high precision oxygen three isotope sims analysis we examined oxygen three isotope ratios of 48 extraterrestrial chromite ec grains extracted from mid ordovician sediments from two different locations in sweden and one location in south central china the ages of the sediments similar to 470 ma coincide with the breakup event of the l chondrite parent asteroid elemental compositions of the chromite grains are generally consistent with their origin from l or ll chondrite parent bodies the average delta o 17 parts per thousand deviation from the terrestrial mass fractionation line measured in situ from 15 mu m spots by secondary ion mass spectrometry sims of ec grains extracted from fossil meteorites from thorsberg and brunflo are 1 17 0 09 parts per thousand 2 sigma and 1 25 0 16 parts per thousand respectively and those of fossil micrometeorites from thorsberg and puxi river are 1 10 0 09 parts per thousand and 1 11 0 12 parts per thousand respectively within uncertainty these values are all the same and consistent with the l chondrite group average delta o 17 1 07 0 18 parts per thousand but also with the ll chondrite group average delta o 17 1 26 0 24 parts per thousand clayton et al 1991 we conclude that the studied ec grains from correlated sediments from sweden and china are related and most likely originated in the same event the l chondrite parent body breakup we also analyzed chromites of modern h l and ll chondrites and show that their delta o 17 values coincide with averages of delta o 17 of bulk analyses of h l and ll chondrites this study demonstrates that in situ oxygen isotope data measured by sims are accurate and precise if carefully standardized and can be used to classify individual extraterrestrial chromite grains found in sediments c 2009 elsevier ltd all rights reserved less

l chondrite asteroid breakup tied to ordovician meteorite shower by multiple isochron 40ar 39ar dating radiochronometry of l chondritic meteorites yields a rough age estimate for a major collision in the asteroid belt about 500 myr ago fossil meteorites from sweden indicate a highly increased influx of extraterrestrial matter in the middle ordovician 480 myr ago an association with the l chondrite parent body event was suggested but a definite link is precluded by the lack of more precise radiometric ages suggested ages range between 450 30 myr and 520 60 myr and can neither convincingly prove a single breakup event nor constrain the delivery times of meteorites from the asteroid belt to earth here we report the discovery of multiple 40ar 39ar isochrons in shocked l chondrites particularly the regolith breccia ghubara that allow the separation of radiogenic argon from multiple excess argon components this approach applied to several l chondrites yields an improved age value that indicates a single asteroid breakup event at 470 6 myr fully consistent with a refined age estimate of the middle ordovician meteorite shower at 467 3 1 6 myr according to a geologic time scale 2004 our results link these fossil meteorites directly to the l chondrite asteroid destruction rapidly transferred from the asteroid belt the increased terrestrial meteorite influx most likely involved larger projectiles that contributed to an increase in the terrestrial cratering rate which implies severe environmental stress

asteroidal source of l chondrite meteorites abstract establishing connections between meteorites and their parent asteroids is an important goal of planetary science several links have been proposed in the past including a spectroscopic match between basaltic meteorites and 4 vesta that are helping scientists understand the formation and evolution of the solar system bodies here we show that the shocked l chondrite meteorites which represent about two thirds of all l chondrite falls may be fragments of a disrupted asteroid with orbital semimajor axis a 2 8 au this breakup left behind thousands of identified 1 15 km asteroid fragments known as the gefion family fossil l chondrite meteorites and iridium enrichment found in an 467 ma old marine limestone quarry in southern sweden and perhaps also 5 large terrestrial craters with corresponding radiometric ages may be tracing the immediate aftermath of the family forming collision when numerous gefion fragments evolved into the earth crossing orbits by the 5 2 resonance with jupiter this work has major implications for our understanding of the source regions of ordinary chondrite meteorites because it implies that they can sample more distant asteroid material than was previously thought possible

u pb isotopic systematics of shock loaded and annealed baddeleyite implications for crystallization ages of martian meteorite shergottites abstract shock recovery and annealing experiments on basalt baddeleyite mixtures were undertaken to evaluate shock effects on u pb isotopic systematics of baddeleyite shock pressures up to 57 gpa caused fracturing of constituent phases mosaicism of olivine maskelynitization of plagioclase and melting but the phase transition from monoclinic baddeleyite structure to high pressure temperature polymorphs of zro 2 was not confirmed the u pb isotopic systems of the shock loaded baddeleyite did not show a large scale isotopic disturbance the samples shock recovered from 47 gpa were then employed for annealing experiments at 1000 or 1300 c indicating that the basalt baddeleyite mixture was almost totally melted except olivine and baddeleyite fine grained euhedral zircon crystallized from the melt was observed around the relict baddeleyite in the sample annealed at 1300 c for 1 h the u pb isotopic systems of baddeleyite showed isotopic disturbances many data points for the samples annealed at 1000 c plotted above the concordia both radiogenic lead loss uranium gain and radiogenic lead gain uranium loss were observed in the baddeleyite annealed at 1300 c complete radiogenic lead loss due to shock metamorphism and subsequent annealing was not observed in the shock loaded annealed baddeleyites studied here these results confirm that the u pb isotopic systematics of baddeleyite are durable for shock metamorphism since shergottites still preserve fe mg and or ca zonings in major constituent phases i e pyroxene and olivine the shock effects observed in martian baddeleyites seem to be less intense compared to that under the present experimental conditions an implication is that the u pb systems of baddeleyite in shergottites will provide crystallization ages of martian magmatic rocks

environmental change recorded in sediments from the marmes rockshelter archaeological site southeastern washington state usa abstract the marmes rockshelter archaeological site in southeastern washington state contains a 11 kyr stratigraphic record that was excavated in the 1960s but only recently analyzed in detail we present the results of physical chemical and isotopic analyses of archived marmes sediments from rockshelter hillslope and floodplain locations multiple lines of evidence including eboulis production soil chemistry and 13c and 18o signatures in soil organic matter and calcium carbonate suggest that relatively cool moist conditions 10 600 to 9700 14c yr bp were followed by relatively warm and dry conditions as early as 9000 14c yr bp warm and dry conditions extended to the late holocene followed by a return to cooler and moister climate the limited range of 13c and 18o values in marmes paleosols suggests that the magnitude of moisture and temperature shifts was locally buffered in the lower snake river canyon but adequate to generate significant changes in sedimentation and soil formation possibly due to nonlinear geological and pedological processes these buffered canyon environments were well suited for establishing residential bases associated with foraging and logistical collecting strategies and may have minimized the influence of climate changes in food resource abundance

sediment dispersed extraterrestrial chromite traces a major asteroid disruption event abundant extraterrestrial chromite grains from decomposed meteorites occur in middle ordovician 480 million years ago marine limestone over an area of 250 000 square kilometers in southern sweden the chromite anomaly gives support for an increase of two orders of magnitude in the influx of meteorites to earth during the mid ordovician as previously indicated by fossil meteorites extraterrestrial chromite grains in mid ordovician limestone can be used to constrain in detail the temporal variations in flux of extraterrestrial matter after one of the largest asteroid disruption events in the asteroid belt in late solar system history

a rain of ordinary chondritic meteorites in the early ordovician forty fossil meteorites with a total original mass of v7 7 kg have been recovered in the first systematic search for fossil meteorites pursued in an active quarry in lower ordovician 480 ma marine limestone in southern sweden the meteorites represent at least 12 different falls over a seafloor area of v6000 m 2 during 91 75 myr making the quarry one of the most meteorite dense areas known in the world geochemical analyses of relict chromite grains indicate that all or most of the meteorites are ordinary chondrites and probably l chondrites mechanisms for meteorite delivery from the asteroid belt to earth were the same 480 ma as today however the flux was one to two orders of magnitude higher most likely reflecting the disruption of the l chondrite parent body at about that time this is a major event in late solar system history which may also have led to an enhanced flux of asteroids to earth during v30 myr fl 2001 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

40ar 39ar age of northwest africa 091 more evidence for a link between l chondrites and fossil meteorites abstract most 40ar 39ar ages of l chondrites record an event at approximately 500 ma indicating a large collisional impact at that time however there is a spread in ages from 400 to 600 ma in these meteorites that is greater than the analytical uncertainty identification of and correction for trapped ar in a few l chondrites has given an age of 470 6 ma this age coincides with ordivician fossil meteorites that fell to earth at 467 2 ma as these fossil meteorites were originally l chondrites the apparent conclusion is that a large impact sent a flood of l chondrite material to earth while material that remained on the l chondrite parent body was strongly heated and reset we have reduced 40ar 39ar data for northwest africa 091 using various techniques that appear in the literature including identification and subtraction of trapped ar these techniques give a range of ages from 455 to 520 ma and show the importance of making accurate corrections by using the most straightforward technique to identify and remove a trapped ar component which is neither terrestrial nor primordial an 40ar 39ar age of 475 6 ma is found for northwest africa 091 showing a temporal link to fossil meteorites in addition high temperature releases of northwest africa 091 contain evidence for a second trapped component and subtraction of this component indicates a possible second collisional impact at approximately 800 ma this earlier age coincides with 40ar 39ar ages of some h and l chondrites and lunar samples

climatic implications of latest pleistocene and earliest holocene mammalian sympatries in eastern washington state usa abstract for more than fifty years it has been known that mammalian faunas of late pleistocene age are taxonomically unique and lack modern analogs it has long been thought that nonanalog mammalian faunas are limited in north america to areas east of the rocky mountains and that late pleistocene mammalian faunas in the west were modern in taxonomic composition a late pleistocene fauna from marmes rockshelter in southeastern washington state has no modern analog and defines an area of maximum sympatry that indicates significantly cooler summers than are found in the area today an earliest holocene fauna from marmes rockshelter defines an area of maximum sympatry including the site area but contains a single tentatively identified taxon that may indicate slightly cooler than modern summers

paleoecological and biogeographical implications of late pleistocene noble marten martes americana nobilis in eastern washington state usa a mandible identified as noble marten martes americana nobilis recovered from sediments dating to 11 800 cal yr bp and a humerus identified as m a cf nobilis recovered from sediments dating from 13 100 to 12 500 cal yr bp at the marmes rockshelter archaeological site in southeastern washington represent the first record of this taxon in the state mammalian taxa associated with the marmes rockshelter noble marten represent a diversity of open mesic habitats corroborating earlier analyses of other records of the noble marten in the western united states and exemplify how paleozoologists determine the ecology and environmental predilections of extinct taxa the recovery site represents the topographically lowest record of this species in western north america and the farthest north record in the united states future research should examine known late quaternary martes spp remains from british columbia and alberta to fill in the 2200 km geographic gap in the known distribution of this taxon between a record in the northern yukon and those in the western united states and to refine our knowledge of noble marten paleoecology

the nature of the l chondrite parent body s disruption as deduced from high pressure phases in the sixiangkou l6 chondrite the disruption of the l chondrite parent body lcpb at similar to 470ma is currently the best documented catastrophic celestial impact event based on the large number of l chondritic materials associated with this event uranium lead u pb dating of apatite and its high pressure decomposition product tuite in the sixiangkou l6 chondrite provides a temporal link to this event the u pb system of phosphates adjacent to shock melt veins was altered to varying degrees and the discordance of the u pb system correlates closely with the extent of apatite decomposition this suggests that the u pb system of apatite could be substantially disturbed by high temperature pulse during shock compression from natural impacts at least on the scale of mineral grains although many l chondrites can be temporally related to the catastrophic lcpb impact event the shock conditions experienced by each individual meteorite vary this could be due to the different geologic settings of these meteorites on their parent body the shock pressure and duration derived from most meteorites may only reflect local shock features rather than the impact conditions although they could provide lower limits to the impact conditions the sixiangkou shock duration similar to 4s estimated from high pressure transformation kinetics provides a lower limit to the high pressure pulse of the lcpb disruption impact combined with available literature data of l chondrites associated with this impact event our results suggest that the lcpb suffered a catastrophic collision with a large projectile with a diameter of at least 18 22km at a low impact velocity 5 6kms 1 this is consistent with astronomical estimates based on the dynamical evolution of l chondritic asteroids

first accelerator mass spectrometry 14c dates documenting contemporaneity of nonanalog species in late pleistocene mammal communities worldwide late pleistocene terrestrial mammal faunas are characterized by stratigraphic associations of species that now have exclusive geographic ranges these have been interpreted as either taphonomically mixed or representative of communities that no longer exist accelerator mass spectrometry sup 14 c dates n 60 on single bones of stratigraphically associated fossil micromammals from two american and two russian sites document for the first time that currently allopatric mammals occurred together between 12 000 and 22 000 yr b p on two continents the existence of mammal communities without modern analogs demonstrates that northern hemisphere biological communities are ephemeral and that many modern biomes are younger than 12 ka future climate change may result in new nonanalog communities

a fossil winonaite like meteorite in ordovician limestone a piece of the impactor that broke up the l chondrite parent body about a quarter of all meteorites falling on earth today originate from the breakup of the l chondrite parent body similar to 470 ma ago the largest documented breakup in the asteroid belt in the past similar to 3 ga a window into the flux of meteorites to earth shortly after this event comes from the recovery of about 100 fossil l chondrites 1 21 cm in diameter in a quarry of mid ordovician limestone in southern sweden here we report on the first non l chondritic meteorite from the quarry an 8 cm large winonaite related meteorite of a type not known among present day meteorite falls and finds the noble gas data for relict spinels recovered from the meteorite show that it may be a remnant of the body that hit and broke up the l chondrite parent body creating one of the major asteroid families in the asteroid belt after two decades of systematic recovery of fossil meteorites and relict extraterrestrial spinel grains from marine limestone it appears that the meteorite flux to earth in the mid ordovician was very different from that of today c 2014 the authors published by elsevier b v less

determining the impactor of the ordovician lockne crater oxygen and neon isotopes in chromite versus sedimentary pge signatures abundant chromite grains with l chondritic composition in the resurge deposits of the lockne impact crater 458 myr old dia similar to 10 km in sweden have been inferred to represent relict fragments of an impactor from the break up of the l chondrite parent body at 470 ma this view has been challenged based on it cr and platinum group element pge patterns of the same resurge deposits and a reinterpretation of the origin of the chromite grains an impactor of the non magmatic iron meteorite type was proposed instead here we show that single grain oxygen and noble gas isotope analyses of the chromite grains from the resurge deposits further support an origin from an l chondritic asteroid we also present pge analyses and ir cr ratios for fossil l chondritic meteorites found in mid ordovician marine limestone in sweden the l chondritic origin has been confirmed by several independent methods including major element and oxygen isotopic analyses of chromite although the meteorites show the same order of magnitude pge and cr concentrations as recent l chondrites the elements have been redistributed to the extent that it is problematic to establish the original meteorite type from these proxies different pge data processing approaches can lead to highly variable results as also shown here for the lockne resurge deposits we conclude that the lockne crater was formed by an l chondritic impactor and that considerable care must be taken when inferring projectile type from pges in sedimentary ejecta deposits c 2011 elsevier b v all rights reserved less

young asteroid melting event indicated by rb sr dating of the point of rocks meteorite the record of collisions on asteroids as preserved in meteorite breccias provides important constraints on impact cratering events in the inner solar system1 2 many young gas retention ages with a peak at 500 myr have been reported for meteorite breccias3 4 but except for a few cases5 they have not been substantiated by the much less susceptible clocks based on refractory parent daughter nuclides such as 87rb 87sr furthermore the nature and intensity of the thermal events responsible for young meteorite ages have not been well evaluated here we report an age of 460 11 2 myr well defined by a rb sr internal isochron for the completely impact melted l chondrite point of rocks this age provides the first evidence for a young intense collision leading to melting on an asteroid

upb systematics of phosphates from equilibrated ordinary chondrites u pb systematics were determined from fifteen phosphate separates from equilibrated ordinary chondrites and from small bulk fragments of the same meteorites the high 238u204pb ratios of thirteen of these phosphate separates lead to extremely radiogenic pb whose 206pb204pb ratios range from 250 up to 3500 the pb pb model ages for these phosphates range from 4 563 to 4 502 ga with an analytical precision of 106 y and the u pb system is apparently concordant the time interval observed 60 106 y reflects the thermal processing of the equilibrated chondrites and is consistent with that previously derived from the rb sr k ar and pu chronologies the pb pb ages of the phosphates from the seven h chondrites show a negative correlation versus their metamorphic grade this is the first clear relationship ever observed between a long lived chronometer and the intensity of metamorphism as reflected by metamorphic grade assuming that the pb pb age indicates the accurate u pb closure time in phosphates the pb pb chronology is compatible with the model of a layered h chondrite parent body however this interpretation of the u pb systematics is not unique it postulates a slow cooling of the equilibrated materials at high temperature in apparent conflict with petrological observations except for the h chondrites which agree rather well with pu systematics comparison of the pb pb chronology with published radiochronometric data does not reveal simple correlations in the present debate concerning the thermal history of chondrites the chronometric information derived from each isotope system is interpreted as the time of its thermal closure however this basic assumption may not be correct for all the radiochronologies and must be evaluated before the radiochronometric data can be applied as compelling time constraints for the period of 4 56 4 4 ga of proto planetary history

metamorphic temperatures in the michigamme formation compared with the thermal effect of an intrusion northern michigan temperature and pressure conditions of metamorphism in the peavy node area in northern michigan have been estimated from the garnet biotite geothermometer and garnet plagioclase aluminosilicate quartz geobarometer sillimanite zone rocks yielded an average temperature 592 c in the staurolite zone temperatures ranged from 545 to 582 c and in the garnet zone temperature estimates were 485 to 557 c the pressure estimate of sillimanite bearing assemblages is 4 4 kb whilst that of andalusite bearing rocks is 2 9 kb at 534 c temperatures due to the peavy pond complex pvc intrusion as a heat source were calculated at various positions within the michigamme fm assuming that the magma was emplaced at 1000 c and taking into account the latent heat of solidification of magma and the heat consumed by metamorphic dehydration reactions if cooling proceeds by conduction a one dimensional 3 2 km thick sheet heat source reaches a maximum temperature of 355 c at 2 5 km from contact within the staurolite zone dur

tuite γ ca3 po4 2 formed by chlorapatite decomposition in a shock vein of the suizhou l6 chondrite tuite ca3 po4 2 was first discovered as the high pressure phase of whitlockite in shock veins of the suizhou l6 meteorite this study reports the finding of tuite in a shock vein of the same suizhou chondrite as a product of decomposition of chlorapatite where it coexists with coarse grained ringwoodite majorite lingunite fine grained majorite pyrope solid solution and magnesiowustite moreover we also successfully synthesized tuite with a multianvil apparatus from chlorapatite at 15 gpa and 1573 k over 24 h both natural and synthetic tuite crystals were examined by means of optical microscopy scanning electron microscope electron microprobe analysis x ray diffraction and raman spectroscopy our results suggest that the na2o mgo and cl contents in natural tuite may serve as good indicators for distinguishing the precursor phosphate mineral chlorapatite or whitlockite

evidence for multiple dynamic events and subsequent decompression stage recorded in a shock vein we investigated a shock vein of the yamato 791384 l6 chondrite to clarify the nature and sequence of the dynamic processes that resulted from the shock events the chondritic host rock of y 791384 mainly consists of olivine fa24 25 low ca pyroxene fs18 22 albitic feldspar an9 10ab84 86or5 7 troilite and metallic fe ni the shock vein contains majorite or majorite pyropess and magnesiowustite minor jadeite as high pressure polymorphs two different dynamic events were recorded in the shock vein the majorite grain contained vitrified mg fe sio3 perovskite inclusions the mg fe sio3 perovskite was crystallized from a chondritic melt and is a remnant of a first dynamic event the majorite and magnesiowustite were also crystallized directly from a chondritic melt but induced by a second dynamic event the pressure condition for the first and second dynamic events would be 24 gpa and 22 gpa respectively pervasive feather shaped olivine fa16 nucleated on the magnesiowustite and majorite this feather shaped olivine is evidence for rapidly grown olivine from the melt related to the shock event phase relations deduced from high pressure melting experiments of the allende meteorite and peridotite indicate that the magnesiowustite and majorite olivine pair cannot coexist at equilibrium condition the disequilibrium assemblage reflects a decompression stage these features demonstrate the complexity of events during a natural dynamic process

the mutual climatic range technique is usually not the area of sympatry technique when reconstructing paleoenvironments based on faunal remains abstract names applied to particular analytical techniques must be explicit and distinctive the potential that two distinct techniques of paleoenvironmental reconstruction that use ancient faunal remains each with a particular name might be confused in the future has recently become a reality the name mutual climatic range mcr coined and developed in the 1980s and concerning the modern climatic not geographic co occurrence of species represented in a prehistoric collection of remains has been applied multiple times to a different technique first published in 2009 the new mcr technique is very similar to a distinct one developed in the 1950s and 1960s that focuses on the location of the geographic co occurrence of species in an assemblage relative to the location of the deposit producing the remains the older method has been known as the area of sympatry aos technique since 1966 histories of the aos and original mcr techniques suggest they were developed independently the new mcr technique seems to have been developed without knowledge of the two earlier ones to avoid future confusion of one technique with the other it is suggested that the new one be renamed the utm mcr technique because rather than use isopleths of climatic variables as the aos technique does it considers climatic variables within 10 10 km utm squares

disturbance of isotope systematics during experimental shock and thermal metamorphism of a lunar basalt with implications for martian meteorite chronology to better determine the effects of impact related processes on radiometric chronometers in meteorites we undertook an isotopic study of experimentally shocked and heated samples of lunar basalt 10017 shock experiments at 55 gpa were completed on one subsample and a second subsample was heated in an evacuated quartz tube at 1000 c for 170 h a third subsample was maintained as a control samarium neodymium rb sr 238 u 206 pb and 206 pb 207 pb isotopic analyses were completed on mineral fractions leached and unleached leached whole rocks and complementary acid leachates disturbance in the shocked and heated samples was evaluated through comparison of their isochron diagrams with those of the control sample the sm nd isotope system was the least disturbed the rb sr isotope system was more disturbed and the 238 u 206 pb and 206 pb 207 pb isotope systems were the most disturbed by shock and annealing samples that experienced extended heating demonstrated greater isotopic disturbances than shocked samples in some cases the true crystallization age was preserved and in others age information was degraded or destroyed in no case did the experiments generate isochrons that maintained linearity while being rotated or completely reset although our results show that neither experimental shock nor thermal metamorphism alone can account for the discordant ages represented by different isotope systems in some martian meteorites we postulate that shock metamorphism may render a meteorite more susceptible than its unshocked counterpart to subsequent disturbance during extended impact related heating or aqueous alteration the combination of these processes may result in the disparate chronometric information preserved in some meteorites

a large shock vein in l chondrite roosevelt county 106 evidence for a long duration shock pulse on the l chondrite parent body a large shock induced melt vein in l6 ordinary chondrite roosevelt county 106 contains abundant high pressure minerals including olivine enstatite and plagioclase fragments that have been transformed to polycrystalline ringwoodite majorite lingunite and jadeite the host chondrite at the melt vein margins contains olivines that are partially transformed to ringwoodite the quenched silicate melt in the shock veins consists of majoritic garnets up to 25 m in size magnetite maghemite and phyllosilicates the magnetite maghemite and phyllosilicates are the terrestrial alteration products of magnesiowustite and quenched glass this assemblage indicates crystallization of the silicate melt at approximately 20 25 gpa and 2000 c coarse majorite garnets in the centers of shock veins grade into increasingly finer grained dendritic garnets toward the vein margins indicating increasing quench rates toward the margins as a result of thermal conduction to the surrounding chondrite host nanocrystalline boundary zones that contain wadsleyite ringwoodite majorite and magnesiowustite occur along shock vein margins these zones represent rapid quench of a boundary melt that contains less metal sulfide than the bulk shock vein one dimensional finite element heat flow calculations were performed to estimate a quench time of 750 1900 ms for a 1 6 mm thick shock vein because the vein crystallized as a single high pressure assemblage the shock pulse duration was at least as long as the quench time and therefore the sample remained at 20 25 gpa for at least 750 ms this relatively long shock pulse combined with a modest shock pressure implies that this sample came from deep in the l chondrite parent body during a collision with a large impacting body such as the impact event that disrupted the l chondrite parent body 470 myr ago

natural high pressure polymorph of merrillite in the shock veins of the suizhou meteorite abstract a new high pressure polymorph of merrillite with the structure of trigonal ca 3 po 4 2 was found in the shock produced veins of the suizhou meteorite where it coexists with ringwoodite majorite naalsi 3 o 8 hollandite and majorite pyrope garnet the crystallographic nature of this natural ca 3 po 4 2 phase was characterized by raman spectroscopy and x ray diffraction and all data compare favorably to the same data obtained from ca 3 po 4 2 synthesized at 14 gpa and 1400 c the cell parameters of this new high pressure mineral are a 5 258 1 angstroms and c 18 727 3 angstroms space group r 3m and density 3 447 g cm 3 where the number in parentheses are standard deviations in the last significant digits the natural occurrence of the ca 3 po 4 2 phase together with other high pressure minerals constrains the pressure of the shock veins at about 23 gpa the suizhou meteorite provides the first naturally occurring example of ca 3 po 4 2 polymorph