^1,2R. H. Hewins,³H. Leroux,³D. Jacob,¹S. Pont,¹O. Beyssac,¹V. Malarewicz,⁴J.-P. Lorand,⁵P.-M. Zanetta,¹B. Zanda
Meteoritics & Planetary Science (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.14028]
¹IMPMC, MNHN, UMR CNRS 7590, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
²Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA
³CNRS, INRAE, Centrale Lille, UMR 8207—UMET—Unité Matériaux et Transformations, Univ. Lille, Lille, France
⁴LPG Nantes, UMR CNRS 6112, Univ. Nantes, Nantes, France
⁵Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

Shergottites have provided abundant information on the volcanic and impact history of Mars. Northwest Africa (NWA) 14672 contributes to both of these aspects. It is a vesicular ophitic depleted olivine–phyric shergottite, with average plagioclase An61Ab39Or0.2. It is highly ferroan, with pigeonite compositions En49-25Fs41-61Wo10-14 like those of basaltic shergottites, for example, NWA 12335. Olivine (Fo53-15) has discrete ferroan overgrowths, more ferroan when in contact with plagioclase than when enclosed by pyroxene. The pyroxene (a continuum of augite, subcalcic augite, and pigeonite) is patchy, with ragged “cores” enveloped or invaded by ferroan pyroxene. Magma mixing may be responsible for capture of olivine and formation of pyroxene mantles. The plagioclase is maskelynite-like in appearance, but the original laths were (congruently) melted and the melt partly crystallized as fine dendrites. Most of the 14% vesicles occur within plagioclase. Olivine, pyroxene, and ilmenite occur in part as fine aggregates crystallized after congruent melting with limited subsequent liquid mixing. There are two fine-grained melt components, barred plagioclase with interstitial Fe-bearing phases, and glass with olivine dendrites, derived by melting of mainly plagioclase and mainly pyroxene, respectively. Rare silica particles contain coesite and/or quartz, and silica glass. The rock has experienced >50% melting, compatible with peak pressure >~65 GPa. It is the most highly shocked shergottite so far, at shock stage S6/7. It may belong to the group of depleted shergottites ejected at ~1 Myr from Tooting Crater.

¹M. Murphy Quinlan,²A.M. Walker,¹C.J. Davies
Earth and Planetary Science Letters 618, 118284 Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2023.118284]
¹School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
²Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Copyright Elsevier

Pallasite meteorites contain evidence for vastly different cooling timescales: rapid cooling at high temperatures (K/yrs) and slow cooling at lower temperatures (K/Myrs). Pallasite olivine also shows contrasting textures ranging from well-rounded to angular and fragmental, and some samples record chemical zoning. Previous pallasite formation models have required fortuitous changes to the parent body in order to explain these contrasting timescales and textures, including late addition of a megaregolith layer, impact excavation, or parent body break-up and recombination. We investigate the timescales recorded in Main Group Pallasite meteorites with a coupled multiscale thermal diffusion modelling approach, using a 1D model of the parent body and a 3D model of the metal-olivine intrusion region, to see if these large-scale changes to the parent body are necessary. We test a range of intrusion volumes and aspect ratios, metal-to-olivine ratios, and initial temperatures for both the background mantle and the intruded metal. We find that the contrasting timescales, textural heterogeneity, and preservation of chemical zoning can all occur within one simple ellipsoidal segment of an intrusion complex. These conditions are satisfied in 13% of our randomly generated models (2200 model runs), with small intrusion volumes (with a mean radius ≲100 m) and colder background mantle temperatures (≲1200 K) favourable. Large rounded olivine can be explained by a previous intrusion of metal into a hotter mantle, suggesting possible repeated bombardment of the parent body. We speculate that the formation of pallasitic zones within planetesimals may have been a common occurrence in the early Solar System, as our model shows that favourable pallasite conditions can be accommodated in a wide range of intrusion morphologies, across a wide range of planetesimal mantle temperatures, without the need for large-scale changes to the parent body. We suggest that pallasites represent a late stage of repeated injection of metal into a cooling planetesimal mantle, and that heterogeneity observed in micro-scale rounding or chemical zoning preservation in pallasite olivine can be explained by diverse cooling rates in different regions of a small intrusion.