Noble-gas-rich chondrules in an enstatite meteorite

Ryuji Okazaki (), Nobuo Takaoka, Keisuke Nagao, Minoru Sekiya and Tomoki Nakamura
Additional contact information
Ryuji Okazaki: Faculty of Sciences, Kyushu University 33
Nobuo Takaoka: Faculty of Sciences, Kyushu University 33
Keisuke Nagao: Laboratory for Earthquake Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo
Minoru Sekiya: Faculty of Sciences, Kyushu University 33
Tomoki Nakamura: Faculty of Sciences, Kyushu University 33

Nature, 2001, vol. 412, issue 6849, 795-798

Abstract: Abstract Chondrules are silicate spherules that are found in abundance in the most primitive class of meteorites, the chondrites. Chondrules are believed to have formed by rapid cooling of silicate melt early in the history of the Solar System1, and their properties should reflect the composition of (and physical conditions in) the solar nebula at the time when the Sun and planets were forming. It is usually believed that chondrules lost all their noble gases at the time of melting2,3,4. Here we report the discovery of significant amounts of trapped noble gases in chondrules in the enstatite chondrite Yamato-791790, which consists of highly reduced minerals. The elemental ratios 36Ar/132Xe and 84Kr/132Xe are similar to those of ‘subsolar’ gas5,6, which has the highest 36Ar/132Xe ratio after that of solar-type noble gases7. The most plausible explanation for the high noble-gas concentration and the characteristic elemental ratios is that solar gases were implanted into the chondrule precursor material, followed by incomplete loss of the implanted gases through diffusion over time.

Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/35090520 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nature:v:412:y:2001:i:6849:d:10.1038_35090520

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

DOI: 10.1038/35090520

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

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