Trace-element analysis of Antarctic H chondrites: Chemical weathering and comparisons with their non-Antarctic counterparts

Thesis/Dissertation · Wed Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1986

OSTI ID:6997673

Kwok, J E

Large numbers of meteorites have been discovered in Antarctica over the last decade (7000 fragments probably representing over 1200 separate events). They are important for their numbers and for their complement of unique or rare specimens; they also have long terrestrial ages (up to 1,000,000 years) compared to non-Antarctic falls (usually < 200 years). We report compositional data for mobile/volatile trace elements Ag, Au, Bi, Cd, Co, Cs, In, Rb, Sb, Se, Te, Ti, U, and Zn in a suite of Antarctic H chondrites. Our data show that heavily oxidized H chondrites are leached of a portion of their trace elements and, therefore, have been chemically compromised by their stay in Antarctica. The less oxidized specimens seem to have retained their chemical integrity. We suggest possibilities for using chemical data to measure the degree of a chondrite's chemical weathering. We compare our data to that obtained previously for non-Antarctic H chondrites (Linger et al., 1986), by petrologic type (H4, H5, H6, H4-6) and shock-loading (moderately shocked facies a-c, heavily shocked facies d-f). Many statistically significant differences are found between non-Antarctic and Victoria Land, Antarctica H chondrites of each petrologic type and of shock facies d-f.

• Research Organization: Purdue Univ., Lafayette, IN (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6997673
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
400200 -- Inorganic
Organic
&amp; Physical Chemistry
640100* -- Astrophysics &amp; Cosmology
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ACTINIDES
ALKALI METALS
ANTIMONY
CADMIUM
CALCULATION METHODS
CESIUM
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
CHONDRITES
DATA
DATA ANALYSIS
ELEMENTS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
GOLD
INFORMATION
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
MEASURING METHODS
METALS
METEORITES
NUMERICAL DATA
QUANTITATIVE CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
RUBIDIUM
SELENIUM
SEMIMETALS
SILVER
STONE METEORITES
TELLURIUM
THALLIUM
TRACE AMOUNTS
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
URANIUM
ZINC