¹Reto Trappitsch, ²Ingo Leya
The Astrophysical Journal 823, 12 Link to Article [http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/823/1/12]
¹Department of the Geophysical Sciences and Chicago Center for Cosmochemistry, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
²Space Research and Planetary Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, 3012, Switzerland

Presolar grains are small particles that condensed in the vicinity of dying stars. Some of these grains survived the voyage through the interstellar medium (ISM) and were incorporated into meteorite parent bodies at the formation of the Solar System. An important question is when these stellar processes happened, i.e., how long presolar grains were drifting through the ISM. While conventional radiometric dating of such small grains is very difficult, presolar grains are irradiated with galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) in the ISM, which induce the production of cosmogenic nuclides. This opens the possibility to determine cosmic-ray exposure (CRE) ages, i.e., how long presolar grains were irradiated in the ISM. Here, we present a new model for the production and loss of cosmogenic 3He, 6,7Li, and 21,22Ne in presolar SiC grains. The cosmogenic production rates are calculated using a state-of-the-art nuclear cross-section database and a GCR spectrum in the ISM consistent with recent Voyager data. Our findings are that previously measured 3He and 21Ne CRE ages agree within the (sometimes large) 2σ uncertainties and that the CRE ages for most presolar grains are smaller than the predicted survival times. The obtained results are relatively robust since interferences from implanted low-energy GCRs into the presolar SiC grains and/or from cosmogenic production within the meteoroid can be neglected.

¹Florian J. Zurfluh, ^1,2Beda A. Hofmann, ³Edwin Gnos, ¹Urs Eggenberger,⁴A. J. Timothy Jull
Meteoritics & Planetary Science (in Press) Link to Article [DOI: 10.1111/maps.12690]
¹Institut für Geologie, Universität Bern, Bern, Switzerland
²Naturhistorisches Museum der Burgergemeinde Bern, Bern, Switzerland
³Muséum d’histoire naturelle de la Ville de Genève, Genève 6, Switzerland
⁴Department of Geosciences and NSF-Arizona AMS Laboratory, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

We have investigated 128 14C-dated ordinary chondrites from Oman for macroscopically visible weathering parameters, for thin section-based weathering degrees, and for chemical weathering parameters as analyzed with handheld X-ray fluorescence. These 128 14C-dated meteorites show an abundance maximum of terrestrial age at 19.9 ka, with a mean of 21.0 ka and a pronounced lack of samples between 0 and 10 ka. The weathering degree is evaluated in thin section using a refined weathering scale based on the current W0 to W6 classification of Wlotzka (1993), with five newly included intermediate steps resulting in a total of nine (formerly six) steps. We find significant correlations between terrestrial ages and several macroscopic weathering parameters. The correlation of various chemical parameters including Sr and Ba with terrestrial age is not very pronounced. The microscopic weathering degree of metal and sulfides with newly added intermediate steps shows the best correlation with 14C terrestrial ages, demonstrating the significance of the newly defined weathering steps. We demonstrate that the observed 14C terrestrial age distribution can be modeled from the abundance of meteorites with different weathering degrees, allowing the evaluation of an age-frequency distribution for the whole meteorite population.

¹Martin R. Lee,²Elias Chatzitheodoridis
Meteoritics & Planetary Science (in Press) Link to Article [DOI: 10.1111/maps.12687]
¹School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
²Department of Geological Sciences, School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

A scanning and transmission electron microscope study of aluminosilicate glasses within melt inclusions from the Martian meteorite Nakhla shows that they have been replaced by berthierine, an aluminum-iron serpentine mineral. This alteration reaction was mediated by liquid water that gained access to the glasses along fractures within enclosing augite and olivine grains. Water/rock ratios were low, and the aqueous solutions were circumneutral and reducing. They introduced magnesium and iron that were sourced from the dissolution of olivine, and exported alkalis. Berthierine was identified using X-ray microanalysis and electron diffraction. It is restricted in its occurrence to parts of the melt inclusions that were formerly glass, thus showing that under the ambient physico-chemical conditions, the mobility of aluminum and silicon were low. This discovery of serpentine adds to the suite of postmagmatic hydrous silicates in Nakhla that include saponite and opal-A. Such a variety of secondary silicates indicates that during aqueous alteration compositionally distinct microenvironments developed on sub-millimeter length scales. The scarcity of berthierine in Nakhla is consistent with results from orbital remote sensing of the Martian crust showing very low abundances of aluminum-rich phyllosilicates.