Fe-bearing phases in a ureilite fragment from the asteroid 2008 TC3 (= Almahata Sitta meteorites): A combined Mössbauer spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction study.

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1,2Gismelseed, A. M., 3Abdu, Y. A., 2Shaddad, M. H., 4Verma, H. C., 5Jenniskens, P.
1Department of Physics, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman
2Department of Physics, University of Khartoum, Khartoum, Sudan
3Department of Geological Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
4Department of Physics, IIT Kanpur, Kanpur, India
5SETI Institute, Carl Sagan Center, Mountain View, California, USA

The iron-bearing phases in a ureilite fragment (AS#051) from the Almahata Sitta meteorite are studied using Mössbauer spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and electron microprobe analysis (EMPA). AS#051 has a typical ureilite texture of medium- to coarse-grained silicates (olivine, orthopyroxene, and pigeonite) with minor opaques (Fe-Ni metal, troilite, and graphite). The silicate compositions, determined by EMPA, are homogeneous: olivine (Fo90.2), orthopyroxene (En86.3Fs8.6Wo5.1), and pigeonite (En81.6Fs8.9Wo9.5), and are similar to those of magnesian ureilites. The modal abundance of mineral phases was determined by Rietveld refinement of the powder XRD data. The Mössbauer spectra at 295 K and 78 K are composed of two sharp well-defined paramagnetic doublets superimposed on a well-resolved magnetic sextet and other weak absorption features. The two paramagnetic doublets are assigned to olivine and pyroxene (orthopyroxene and pigeonite), and the ferromagnetic sextet to kamacite (magnetic hyperfine field ≈ 33.2 T), in agreement with the XRD characterization. The Mössbauer results also show the presence of small amounts of troilite (FeS) and cohenite ([Fe,Ni,Co]3C). Using the Mössbauer data, the relative abundance of each Fe-bearing phase is determined and compared with the results obtained by XRD

Reference
Gismelseed AM, Abdu YA, Shaddad MH, Verma HC, Jennikens P (2014), Fe-bearing phases in a ureilite fragment from the asteroid 2008 TC3 (= Almahata Sitta meteorites): A combined Mössbauer spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction study. Meteoritics & Planetary Science (in Press)
Link to Article [doi: 10.1111/maps.12345]

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