Braukmuller et al. (2018) proposed that all elements fall into one of four categories based on their condensation temperature: refractory elements (50% condensation temperature, Tc,50 > 1400 K), which exhibit approximately uniform enrichments in their Si-normalized concentrations in CC chondrites compared to CI chondrites by a factor of ∼1–1.4; main component elements (1300 K  Tc,50  1400 K), which have approximately the same Si-normalized elemental abundances in CC chondrites as CI chondrites (differ by a factor of ∼0.8–1.1); slope-volatile elements (800 K  Tc,50  1300 K), which exhibit monotonically decreasing Si-normalized concentrations with decreasing Tc,50 compared to CI chondrites; and plateau volatile elements (Tc,50  800 K), which display uniform depletions in Si-normalized concentrations compared to CI chondrites by a factor of ∼0.1–0.7 that are characteristic of each CC chondrite group. Given their uniform nature with Tc,50 and comparatively well-constrained isotopic and elemental compositions, we chose to focus on the concentrations of refractory, main component, and plateau volatile elements in this study. For the refractory and main component elements in CC chondrites, we examine the elemental and isotopic compositions of Ti and Cr, respectively, because these are lithophile elements whose isotopic compositions have been measured precisely for a large number of chondrites and their components (Trinquier et al. 2007, 2009; Qin et al. 2010; Olsen et al. 2016; Van Kooten et al. 2016; Gerber et al. 2017; Davis et al. 2018; Zhu et al. 2019; Schneider et al. 2020; Williams et al. 2020). For CC iron meteorites, we examine the isotopic compositions of Mo and Ni, respectively, because these are siderophile elements (so are therefore present in appreciable concentrations in iron meteorites, unlike Ti and Cr) whose compositions have also been relatively well studied in a number of iron meteorites as well as chondrites and their components (Burkhardt et al. 2011; Budde et al. 2016; Kruijer et al. 2017; Bermingham et al. 2018; Nanne et al. 2019; Budde et al. 2019; Worsham et al. 2019; Brennecka et al. 2020; Spitzer et al. 2020). For the plateau volatile elements, we examine the elemental compositions of six elements (Bi, Ag, Pb, Zn, Te, and Sn) that exhibit a number of desirable properties: their concentrations have been relatively well constrained in CC chondrites; they show a range of lithophile, siderophile, and chalcophile behaviors; their concentrations do not appear to be strongly dependent on redox state; they show minimal variability among NC chondrite groups. Our reasoning for not considering the isotopic compositions of these elements is discussed in Section 2.3. The adopted isotopic and chemical composition of each element used in this study in CC chondrites, CC iron meteorites, CAIs, CI chondrites, and NC chondrites are included in Table 1. Uncertainties on elemental concentrations have not been routinely reported throughout the literature, although these values are typically ±5 wt% (e.g., Lodders 2003; Palme et al. 2014). CAIs can be categorized into six groups based on their compositions (Stracke et al. 2012). For the purposes of this study, we adopt the composition of type I CAIs as the representative value of refractory objects because they are seemingly the most abundant type and lack the characteristic elemental depletions of other CAI groups (e.g., Stracke et al. 2012; Brennecka et al. 2020). We also focus largely on ordinary chondrites (OC) as representative NC meteorites rather than enstatite chondrites (EC) or Rumuruti chondrites (RC). This is because EC chondrites formed under more reducing conditions than OC and RC chondrites, which introduced a compositional signature for some elements to EC chondrites that is not present in OC, RC, or CC chondrites (presumably due to their formation in more oxidizing environments) so is not representative of large-scale mixing in the disk (Alexander 2019b). Additionally, the isotopic compositions of RC chondrites are sparsely measured compared to OC and EC chondrites. NC meteorites could have experienced a number of processes (e.g., mixing, chondrule formation, volatile loss, the addition of refractory materials, etc.) that gave these meteorites their specific chemical and isotopic signatures (Alexander 2019b). We do not explore these processes in this study and simply adopt the measured elemental and isotopic compositions of NC chondrites as potential end-members for the compositions of CC meteorites.
Citation: Brennecka et al. 2020
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Citation: Davis et al. 2018
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Citation: Brennecka et al. 2020
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