Early formation of evolved asteroidal crust

James M. D. Day (), Richard D. Ash, Yang Liu, Jeremy J. Bellucci, Douglas Rumble, William F. McDonough, Richard J. Walker and Lawrence A. Taylor
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James M. D. Day: University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
Richard D. Ash: University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
Yang Liu: Planetary Geosciences Institute, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA
Jeremy J. Bellucci: University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
Douglas Rumble: Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution for Science
William F. McDonough: University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
Richard J. Walker: University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
Lawrence A. Taylor: Planetary Geosciences Institute, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, USA

Nature, 2009, vol. 457, issue 7226, 179-182

Abstract: Asteroids earn a crust Basaltic meteorites provide evidence that, like the terrestrial planets, some asteroids generated a crust and underwent large-scale differentiation processes. The recent discovery of paired meteorites known as GRA 06128 and GRA 06129, found in the Graves Nunataks icefields in Eastern Antarctica, has provided an opportunity to determine the composition of early-differentiated asteroidal crust. At about 4.5 billion years old, these bodies formed early in the life of the Solar System. Their composition, feldspar-rich andesite, is most consistent with an origin as partial melts from a volatile-rich oxidized asteroid, and is quite close to rocks found in the Earth's continental crust. This shows that an alternative mechanism — in addition to the plate tectonics that generates such rocks on Earth — can form a crust of andesite.

Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1038/nature07651

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