Isotopic evolution of the inner solar system revealed by size-dependent oxygen isotopic variations in chondrules

1Yves Marrocchi,1Alizé Longeau,1Rosa Lozano Goupil,1Valentin Dijon,1,2,3Gabriel Pinto,1Julia Neukampf,1Johan Villeneuve,4Emmanuel Jacquet 
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2024.03.001]
1Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques (CRPG), CNRS, UMR 7358, Nancy, France
2Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Geological Survey of Belgium, 1000, Brussels, Belgium
3Instituto de Ciencias de la Tierra, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile
4Institut de Minéralogie, de Physique des Matériaux et de Cosmochimie (IMPMC), Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, CP52, 57 rue Cuvier, 75005 Paris, France
Copyright Elsevier

The systematic isotopic difference between refractory inclusions and chondrules, particularly for oxygen, has long indicated an isotopic evolution of the solar protoplanetary disk. However, it remains underconstrained whether such evolution continued during chondrule formation. Intrigued by past reports of the size-dependent oxygen isotopic compositions of chondrules in ordinary chondrites (OC), we analyzed type I olivine-rich chondrules of various sizes in two LL3 chondrites. Although most chondrules show positive Δ17O values comparable to bulk ordinary chondrites, a population of smaller (less than about 0.1 mm2 in cross-section), including many isolated olivine grains (sensu lato), are 16O-enriched (with Δ17O values down to −13.2 ‰). Literature data allow the same observation for R chondrites. All sub-TFL type I chondrules (i.e., Δ17O < 0) chondrules have Mg# > 97 mol% while the supra-TFL type I chondrule olivines extend to the formal boundary with type II chondrules (i.e., Mg# = 90 mol%). The sub-TFL chondrules are likely genetically related to isotopically similar aluminum-rich chondrules described in the literature. They therefore must have formed earlier than most OC and R chondrules when the inner disk was still sub-TFL. This interpretation is supported by the presence of similarly 16O-rich relict grains in supra-TFL OC and R chondrules that must be remains of this incompletely recycled precursor material. The non-carbonaceous reservoir was thus still evolving isotopically towards 16O-poorer composition when chondrule formation began, whether by mixing with outer disk material, late accretion streamers and/or an increase in the solid/gas ratio due to magnetothermal disk winds.

Wetting property of Fe-S melt in solid core: Implication for the core crystallization process in planetesimals

1Shiori Matsubara,1Hidenori Terasaki,2Takashi Yoshino,1Satoru Urakawa,1Daisuke Yumitori
Meteoritics & Planetary Science (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.14149]
1Department of Earth Sciences, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan
2Institute for Planetary Materials, Okayama University, Tottori, Japan
Copyright Elsevier

In differentiated planetesimals, the liquid core starts to crystallize during secular cooling, followed by the separation of liquid–solid phases in the core. The wetting property between liquid and solid iron alloys determines whether the core melts are trapped in the solid core or they can separate from the solid core during core crystallization. In this study, we performed high-pressure experiments under the conditions of the interior of small bodies (0.5–3.0 GPa) to study the wetting property (dihedral angle) between solid Fe and liquid Fe-S as a function of pressure and duration. The measured dihedral angles are approximately constant after 2 h and decrease with increasing pressure. The dihedral angles range from 30° to 48°, which are below the percolation threshold of 60° at 0.5–3.0 GPa. The oxygen content in the melt decreases with increasing pressure and there are strong positive correlations between the S + O or O content and the dihedral angle. Therefore, the change in the dihedral angle is likely controlled by the O content of the Fe-S melt, and the dihedral angle tends to decrease with decreasing O content in the Fe-S melt. Consequently, the Fe-S melt can form interconnected networks in the solid core. In the obtained range of the dihedral angle, a certain amount of the Fe-S melt can stably coexist with solid Fe, which would correspond to the “trapped melt” in iron meteorites. Excess amounts of the melt would migrate from the solid core over a long period of core crystallization in planetesimals.