¹Shelby Johnston,¹Alan Brandon,²Claire McLeod,³Kai Rankenburg,⁴Harry Becker,¹Peter Copeland
Nature 611, 501–506 Link to Article [DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05265-0]
¹Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA
²Department of Geology and Environmental Earth Science, Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA
³John De Laeter Centre, Curtin University, Bentley, Western Australia, Australia
⁴Freie Universitat, Berlin, Germany

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¹Marcela E. Saavedra,²Julia Roszjar,³My E. I. Riebe,¹María E. Varela,⁴Shuying Yang,⁴Munir Humayun,⁵Ryoji Tanaka,³H. Busemann
Meteoritics & Planetary Science (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.13913]
¹ICATE-CONICET, Av. España 1512 Sur, San Juan, J5402DSP Argentina
²Department of Mineralogy and Petrography, Natural History Museum Vienna, Burgring 7, 1010 Vienna, Austria
³Department of Earth Sciences, Institute of Geochemistry and Petrology, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland
⁴National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, 32310 USA
⁵Institute for Planetary Materials, Okayama University, 827 Yamada, Misasa, Tottori, 682-0193 Japan
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

On the night of June 22, 1931 at 4 h 30 min, a fireball was seen in the vicinity of Malotas, Argentina. During the atmospheric trajectory (southwest to northeast), it experienced several fragmentation events. After the fall, a piece was given to Professor Juan A. Olsacher (National University of Córdoba City, Argentina), who collected some further pieces. One of those samples was officially classified as an H5 ordinary chondrite termed Malotas. The present work focuses on the study of another two pieces rediscovered recently in the Museo de Mineralogía y Geología Dr. Alfred Stelzner in Cordoba City, Argentina. The first piece turned out to be an achondritic meteorite termed Malotas (b). Petrographic features, chemical composition, and oxygen isotopes point to a monomict basaltic eucrite belonging to the Stannern-trend chemical subgroup of eucrites. The occurrence of anorthitic plagioclase veins in clinopyroxene, veinlet apatite, irregular-shaped pockets of silica and troilite and porous silica signal metasomatism and thermal annealing before a late thermal event took place after brecciation. The latter was possibly recorded in the nominal U/Th-4He ages of 1.2–3.4 Ga detected in this work, whereas nominal K-Ar gas retention ages are within the range 3.5–4.2 Ga and may have escaped late thermal modifications. The second piece is classified as an L5 chondrite. The different cosmic ray exposure ages of 3, ~50, and 27 Ma determined for the H5 and L5 chondrites and the eucrite samples, respectively, might signal a common fall as a result of the breakup of a polymict meteoroid.

^1,2Hope A.Tornabene,²Richard D.Ash,²Richard J.Walker,¹Katherine R.Bermingham
Geochimica e Cosmochimica Acta (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2022.11.016]
¹Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA
²Department of Geology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, 20742, USA
Copyright Elsevier

The IC iron meteorite group is characterized utilizing nucleosynthetic mass-independent isotopic compositions and 182W age constraints, coupled with siderophile element concentration measurements and modeling of crystal-liquid fractionation processes. The six IC irons analyzed, Arispe, Bendego, Chihuahua City, Nocoleche, NWA 2743, and Winburg have indistinguishable Mo and W genetic isotopic compositions and are consistent with derivation from the same parent body, which formed in the non-carbonaceous (NC) nebular reservoir. A pre-exposure µ182W value (parts-per-million deviations in isotopic ratios from terrestrial standards) for the six IC irons of -337 ± 5 corresponds to a metal-silicate segregation age of 1.0 ± 0.4 Myr after calcium-aluminum-rich inclusion (CAI) formation. This age is similar to those determined for other NC iron groups. Siderophile element abundances of the IC irons are generally similar and characterized by minor depletions in the more volatile siderophile elements. Highly siderophile element (HSE) distributions among the IC group suggest that the initial parent body core was S-rich, with preferred model results indicating an initial melt composition with ∼18 wt% S, 2 wt% P and 0.03 wt% C. Processes in addition to fractional crystallization, such as late-stage parent body modification, possibly as a result of impacts, and subsequent metal-melt mixing, are required within the first 100 Myr of Solar System history to explain the range of HSE abundances.

¹Ananya Mallik,²Sabrina Schwinger,¹Arkadeep Roy,¹Pranabendu Moitra
Meteoritics & Planetary Science (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.13921]
¹Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, 85721 USA
²Institute of Planetary Research, German Aerospace Center, Berlin, 12489 Germany
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

The Moon is much wetter than previously thought. The estimated bulk H2O concentrations based on the analyses of H2O in lunar materials show a wide range from 5 to 1650 ppm. To better constrain bulk H2O in the lunar magma ocean (LMO), we model LMO crystallization and vary DH (concentration of H2O in LMO mineral/concentration of H2O in melt), interstitial melt fraction, and initial LMO depth. We take the highest and lowest values of DH reported in the literature for the LMO minerals. We assess the bulk H2O content required in the initial magma ocean to satisfy two observational constraints: (1) H2O measured in plagioclase grains from ferroan anorthosites and (2) crustal mass from GRAIL. We find that the initial bulk LMO H2O that best explains the H2O content in crustal plagioclase is strongly dependent on DH rather than interstitial melt fractions or initial LMO depths, with a drier magma ocean (10 ppm H2O) being favored with higher DH and a wetter magma ocean (100–1000 ppm H2O) with lower DH. This underscores the importance of constraining DH specific to lunar conditions in future studies. We also demonstrate that crustal mass is not an effective hygrometer.

¹Daniel L.Burgin,¹James M.Scott,¹Petrus J.le Roux,²Geoffrey Howarth,¹Marshall C.Palmer,¹Thomas A.Czertowicz,¹Marianne Negrini,^1,3Malcolm R.Reid,^1,3Claudine H.Stirling
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2022.11.011]
¹Department of Geology, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
²University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa
³Centre for Trace Element Analysis, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
Copyright Elsevier

The 87Sr/86Sr isotopic properties of martian meteorites, measured by isolation and purification of Rb and Sr fractions, have long been used to partially characterise Mars’ mantle. However, this method is time-consuming, destructive, and subject to incorporation of terrestrial contamination due to precipitation of phases in fractures and/or grain boundaries prior to meteorite collection. In this study, we test the effectiveness of in situ acquisition of 87Sr/86Sr by laser ablation in maskelynite – a typically low Rb/Sr (< 0.1) feldspar-composition glass formed during high-P shock metamorphism – as a method of rapid characterisation of Mars’ mantle Sr isotope ratios. Element concentration maps and the results of unwashed and gently surface-leached bulk rock analyses indicate that terrestrial Sr has infiltrated the studied meteorites and affected bulk rock trace element budgets. However, maskelynite trace element concentrations are largely unaffected and their martian igneous Rb/Sr is preserved. In situ 87Sr/86Sr analyses of maskelynite, checked against a newly developed Sr feldspar reference material (KAN, presented here and available on demand), accurately and precisely distinguish different shergottite mantle reservoirs. The measurements reproduce published data, have uncertainties on the 4th to 5th decimal place, and yield statistically indistinguishable results in analytical sessions separated by long periods of time. The data from 11 enriched shergottites reveal there to be subtle Sr isotope variation within the enriched shergottite mantle reservoir, or that there was crustal assimilation of radiogenic components into the shergottites, or that the shergottite liquids were extracted over a time period during which the mantle reservoir 87Sr/86Sr evolved. The limited published age range of the enriched shergottites, coupled with the absence of a correlation between in situ 87Sr/86Sr and REE, Sr or Pb concentration in maskelynite, suggests that the isotope range is best explained by small variations in the enriched mantle reservoir. Given the presence of maskelynite (or plagioclase) in many meteorites, the in situ method will be useful when there are only very small volumes of material available and/or where terrestrial contamination is suspected.

^1,2L.Allibert,^1,5J.Siebert,¹S.Charnoz,³S.A.Jacobson,⁴S.N.Raymond
Icarus (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2022.115325]
¹Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université de Paris, 1 Rue Jussieu, Paris, France
²Museum für Naturkunde, Invalidenstrasse 43, Berlin, Germany
³Michigan State University, Earth and Environmental Sciences, 288 Farm Ln, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
⁴Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux, Allée Geoffroy St Hilaire, Bordeaux, France
⁵Institut Universitaire de, France
Copyright Elsevier

Impact-induced erosion of the Earth’s early crust during accretion of terrestrial bodies can significantly modify the primordial chemical composition of the Bulk Silicate Earth (BSE, that is, the composition of the crust added to the present-day mantle). In particular, it can be particularly efficient in altering the abundances of elements having a strong affinity for silicate melts (i.e. incompatible elements) as the early differentiated crust was preferentially enriched in those. Here, we further develop an erosion model (EROD) to quantify the effects of collisional erosion on the final composition of the BSE. Results are compared to the present-day BSE composition models and constraints on Earth’s accretion processes are provided. The evolution of the BSE chemical composition resulting from crustal stripping is computed for entire accretion histories of about 50 Earth analogs in the context of the Grand Tack model. The chosen chemical elements span a wide range of incompatibility degrees. We find that a maximum loss of 40wt% can be expected for the most incompatible lithophile elements such as Rb, Th or U in the BSE when the crust is formed from low partial melting rates. Accordingly, depending on both the exact nature of the crust-forming processes during accretion and the accretion history itself, Refractory Lithophile Elements (RLE) may not be in chondritic relative proportions in the BSE. In that case, current BSE estimates may need to be corrected as a function of the geochemical incompatibility of these elements. Alternatively, if RLE are indeed in chondritic relative proportions in the BSE, accretion scenarios that are efficient in affecting the BSE chemical composition should be questioned.

¹Yan Zhuang,^1,2Hao Zhang,¹Pei Ma,¹Te Jiang,³Yazhou Yang,⁴Ralph E.Milliken,^5,2Weibiao Hsu
Icarus (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2022.115346]
¹School of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China
²CAS Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology, Hefei, China
³Key Laboratory of Space Weather, National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
⁴Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
⁵Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China
Copyright Elsevier

Most solid planetary bodies in the solar system are covered by a layer of fine particles and the topic of light scattering by small particles has been thoroughly studied in the past decades. In contrast, light reflection from intact rocks has received much less attention, though the spectral features of fresh rocks are more diagnostic than that of highly space-weathered regolith grains. As high spatial-resolution spectral images obtained by modern space-borne and in-situ sensors have become available, it is important to understand the spectral feature links between rocks and powders made by crushing the rocks. In this work, we selected 13 terrestrial igneous rocks with a 1 μm absorption feature and measured the visible and near-infrared reflectance spectra of their slabs and powders in three size fractions, 0-45 μm, 90-125 μm, and 450-900 μm. We have found that the spectral characteristics of these samples can be divided into two groups. For slabs with reflectance lower than 0.1 at 0.5 μm, they have less pronounced 1 μm absorption feature. For slabs with reflectance higher than 0.1, they have pronounced 1 μm feature, consistent with that of their powdered counterparts. By using the equivalent-slab and the Hapke model, we obtained the optical constants and single scattering albedo values of the samples. The dependence of single scattering albedo on effective absorption thickness indicates that the differences between the spectral characteristics of rock slabs and powdered samples are likely controlled by the degree of weak surface scattering contributions. We reconstructed the spectrum of a powdered lunar meteorite which best matches the Chang’E-4 rock and found that the reconstructed rock spectra are very close to the rock spectrum observed in suit by Chang’E-4.

¹Jing Yang,^2,3Dongyang Ju,²Runlian Pang,^1,3Rui Li,^1,4Jianzhong Liu,^2,4Wei Du
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2022.11.008]
¹Center for Lunar and Planetary Sciences, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550081, China
²State Key Laboratory of Ore Deposit Geochemistry, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550081, China
³College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
⁴Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230026, China
Copyright Elsevier

Highly evolved lithology distributes across the Moon sparsely but serves as a critical record of the extensive differentiation processes of lunar magmas. In contrast to the Apollo-returned highly evolved rocks that essentially formed before the end of the Nectarian period, silicic lithologies detected by remote sensing within the nearside Procellarum KREEP Terrane (PKT) have cratering model age as young as ∼2.5 Ga (Chevrel et al., 2009). The formation mechanism of the young silicic magmatism remains enigmatic. Here we present a detailed study of lithic clasts with highly evolved compositions from the northwestern PKT returned by Chang’E-5 mission. Two different types of highly evolved lithic clasts were recognized: (a) Type A clasts predominately consist of granophyric intergrowths of K-feldspar and quartz. They are highly depleted in incompatible elements (except for K, Rb, Cs, and Ba) and have a V-shaped REE pattern, which can be explained by silicate liquid immiscibility (SLI) following the fractionation of merrillite from a KREEP-like melt. The microtextural features of quartz in Type A clasts indicate that they could have crystallized through relatively slow cooling at temperature below 870 ℃, supporting a shallow intrusive origin. The silicic intrusion exposed in the interior, rim, and ejecta of Aristarchus crater has a cratering model age of ∼2.5-3.7 Ga, which could be the source for Type A clasts; (b) Type B clast has little MgO, high incompatible element concentrations, and an REE pattern inclined to the right. Thermodynamic calculations indicate that Type B clast likely formed through SLI of the ∼25% residual melt of Em3 basalts in the Chang’E-5 landing region. This is consistent with the crystallization age of 2.57 ± 0.26 Ga for the zirconolite in Type B clast. The highly evolved samples from Chang’E-5 regolith provide new evidence that SLI may have played an important role in the young highly evolved intrusive bodies’ formation on the Moon. Furthermore, our thermodynamic modeling results show that compared to KREEP basalt, partial melting of quartz monzodiorite/monzogabbro at ∼930-1000 ℃ can produce melts with composition close to lunar granites and felsites. Thus, if a series of silicic volcanisms distributed mostly within the PKT was generated through this mechanism, quartz monzodiorite/monzogabbro may also widely distribute within the lunar nearside upper crust.

^1,2Malgorzata U. Sliz,^2,3Beda A. Hofmann,¹Ingo Leya,⁴Sönke Szidat,⁵Christophe Espic,⁵Jérôme Gattacceca,⁵Régis Braucher,⁵Daniel Borschneck,⁶Edwin Gnos,⁵ASTER Team
Meteoritics & Planetary Science (in Press) Open Access Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.13922]
¹Space Research and Planetary Sciences, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
²Natural History Museum Bern, Bernastrasse 15, 3005 Bern, Switzerland
³Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, Baltzerstrasse 1+3, 3005 Bern, Switzerland
⁴Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry & Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Freiestrasse 3, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
⁵CNRS, Aix Marseille Univ, IRD, INRAE, CEREGE, Aix-en-Provence, France
⁶Natural History Museum of Geneva, Route de Malagnou 1, 1208 Geneva, Switzerland
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

Through the investigation of terrestrial ages of meteorites from Oman, we aim to better understand the time scales of meteorite accumulation and erosion in Oman and the meteorite flux in the past. Here, we present 14C and 14C-10Be terrestrial ages of seven ordinary chondrite strewn fields and two unpaired single meteorites from the Sultanate of Oman. After critical evaluation of multiple data for each strewn field, we propose “best estimate terrestrial ages,” typically based on 14C/10Be. For objects for which complex irradiation histories are known or suspected, terrestrial ages were calculated solely using 14C. The best estimate strewn field ages range from 8.1 ± 3.0 ka (SaU 001) to 35.2 ± 5.1 ka (Dho 005). Including two previously dated strewn fields, the mean and median age of nine Oman strewn fields is 15.9 ± 12.3 and 13.6 ka, respectively. The new data show a general good agreement with data previously obtained in a different laboratory, and we observe a similar general correlation between strewn field ages and mean weathering grade as in previous work based on individual meteorites. Weathering degree W4 is reached for dated samples after 20–35 ka. While the age statistics of strewn fields does not show the previously observed lack of young events, the low abundance of young (0–5 ka) individual meteorites as compared with older (~20 ka) meteorites is confirmed by our data and remains unexplained.

¹Paolo A.Sossi,¹Peter M.E.Tollan,²James Badro,³Dan J.Bower
Earth and Planetary Science Letters 601, 117894 Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117894]
¹Institute of Geochemistry and Petrology, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland
²Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université de Paris, 75005 Paris, France
³Center for Space and Habitability, Universität Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland
Copyright Elsevier

Atmospheres are products of time-integrated mass exchange between the surface of a planet and its interior. On Earth and other planetary bodies, magma oceans likely marked significant atmosphere-forming events, during which both steam- and carbon-rich atmospheres may have been generated. However, the nature of Earth’s early atmosphere, and those around other rocky planets, remains unclear for lack of constraints on the solubility of water in liquids of appropriate composition. Here we determine the solubility of water in 14 peridotite liquids, representative of Earth’s mantle, synthesised in a laser-heated aerodynamic levitation furnace. We explore oxygen fugacities (fO2) between −1.9 and +6.0 log units relative to the iron-wüstite buffer at constant temperature (2173 ± 50 K) and total pressure (1 bar). The resulting fH2O ranged from nominally 0 to 0.027 bar and fH2 from 0 to 0.064 bar. Total H2O contents were determined by transmission FTIR spectroscopy of doubly-polished thick sections from the intensity of the absorption band at 3550 cm−1 and applying the Beer-Lambert law. The mole fraction of water in the liquid is found to be proportional to (fH2O)0.5, attesting to its dissolution as OH. The data are fitted by a solubility coefficient of 524 ± 16 ppmw/bar0.5, given a molar absorption coefficient, , of 6.3 ± 0.3 m2/mol for basaltic glasses or 647 ± 25 ppmw/bar0.5, for a preliminary m2/mol for peridotitic glasses. These solubility constants are roughly 10 – 25% lower than those for basaltic liquids at 1623 K and 1 bar. Higher temperatures result in lower water solubility in silicate melts, wholly offsetting the greater depolymerisation of peridotite melts that would otherwise increase H2O solubility relative to basaltic liquids at constant temperature. Because the solubility of water remains high relative to that of CO2, steam atmospheres are rare, although they may form under moderately oxidising conditions on telluric bodies, provided sufficiently high H/C ratios prevail.