¹Ioannis Baziotis,¹Stamatios Xydous¹Angeliki Papoutsa,²Jinping Hu,²Chi Ma,³Stephan Klemme,³Jasper Berndt,⁴Ludovic Ferrière,^5,6Razvan Caracas,²Paul D. Asimow
American Mineralogist 107, 1868-1977Link to Article [http://www.minsocam.org/msa/ammin/toc/2022/Abstracts/AM107P1868.pdf]
¹Agricultural University of Athens, Natural Resources Management and Agricultural Engineering, Laboratory of Mineralogy and Geology, Iera Odos 75, 11855, Athens, Greece
²California Institute of Technology, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, Pasadena, California 91125, U.S.A.
³Westfälische Wilhelms‑Univ. Münster, Institut für Mineralogie, Correnstrasse 24, 48149 Münster, Germany
⁴Natural History Museum, Burgring 7, A‑1010, Vienna, Austria
⁵CNRS, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon LGLTPE UMR5276, Centre Blaise Pascal,46 allée d’Italie Lyon 69364, France
⁶The Center for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED), University of Oslo, Blindern, Oslo, Norway
Copyright: The Mineralogical Society of America

Jadeite is frequently reported in shocked meteorites, displaying a variety of textures and grain sizes
that suggest formation by either solid‑state transformation or by crystallization from a melt. Some‑
times, jadeite has been identified solely on the basis of Raman spectra. Here we argue that additional
characterization is needed to confidently identify jadeite and distinguish it from related species. Based
on chemical and spectral analysis of three new occurrences, complemented by first-principles calcula‑
tions, we show that related pyroxenes in the chemical space (Na)M2(Al)M1(Si2)TO6–(Ca)M2(Al)M1(AlSi)
TO6–()M2(Si)M1(Si2)TO6 with up to 2.25 atoms Si per formula unit have spectral features similar to
jadeite. However, their distinct stability fields (if any) and synthesis pathways, considered together
with textural constraints, have different implications for precursor phases and estimates of impactor
size, encounter velocity, and crater diameter. A reassessment of reported jadeite occurrences casts a
new light on many previous conclusions about the shock histories preserved in particular meteorites