Evidence of metasomatism in the interior of Vesta

Ai-Cheng Zhang (), Noriyuki Kawasaki, Huiming Bao, Jia Liu, Liping Qin, Minami Kuroda, Jian-Feng Gao, Li-Hui Chen, Ye He, Naoya Sakamoto and Hisayoshi Yurimoto
Additional contact information
Ai-Cheng Zhang: Nanjing University
Noriyuki Kawasaki: Hokkaido University
Huiming Bao: Louisiana State University
Jia Liu: CAS Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology
Liping Qin: CAS Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology
Minami Kuroda: Hokkaido University
Jian-Feng Gao: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Li-Hui Chen: Nanjing University
Ye He: Nanjing University
Naoya Sakamoto: Hokkaido University
Hisayoshi Yurimoto: Hokkaido University

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Diogenites are a group of meteorites that are derived from the interior of the largest protoplanet Vesta. They provide a unique opportunity to understanding together the internal structure and dynamic evolution of this protoplanet. Northwest Africa (NWA) 8321 was suggested to be an unbrecciated noritic diogenite meteorite, which is confirmed by our oxygen and chromium isotopic data. Here, we find that olivine in this sample has been partly replaced by orthopyroxene, troilite, and minor metal. The replacement texture of olivine is unambiguous evidence of sulfur-involved metasomatism in the interior of Vesta. The presence of such replacement texture suggests that in NWA 8321, the olivine should be of xenolith origin while the noritic diogenite was derived from partial melting of pre-existing rocks and had crystallized in the interior of Vesta. The post-Rheasilvia craters in the north-polar region on Vesta could be the potential source for NWA 8321.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15049-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-15049-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15049-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().