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AGU: Journal of Geophysical Research, Planets

 

Keywords

  • impact melt
  • H chondrite
  • impact cratering
  • Antarctic meteorites
  • Orvinio
  • impact chronology

Index Terms

  • Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects: Asteroids
  • Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets: Impact phenomena, cratering
  • Geochemistry: Composition of meteorites
  • Mineralogy and Petrology: Meteorite mineralogy and petrology
  • Geochronology: Planetary and lunar geochronology
Abstract
Cited By (2)
 

Abstract

JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 115, E07009, 22 PP., 2010
doi:10.1029/2009JE003433

Impact cratering on the H chondrite parent asteroid

Axel Wittmann

Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas, USA

Timothy D. Swindle

Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA

Leah C. Cheek

Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

Elizabeth A. Frank

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, USA

David A. Kring

Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas, USA

This paper reports petrological data for LaPaz Icefield 02240, 03922, 031125, 031173, 031308, 04462, and 04751, which are meteoritic samples of clast-rich impact melt rocks from the H chondrite parent asteroid. The size distribution and metallographic characteristics of Fe-Ni metal in the melts indicate very rapid 1 to 40°C/s cooling in the temperature range between >1500 and ∼950°C when the clast-melt mixtures were thermally equilibrating. Cooling slowed to values between 10−3 and 10−2°C/s in the temperature range between 700 and 400°C when the melt rocks were cooling to their surroundings. These data suggest that the rocks cooled near the surface of the H chondrite asteroid within suevitic impact deposits. Integrating these data with the petrologic characteristics of other H chondrite melt rocks and their radioisotopic ages indicates that the H chondrite asteroid suffered at least one large impact event while still cooling from endogenous metamorphism at ∼4500 Ma; this impact must have degraded the asteroid's integrity but did not cause shattering. Impact events in the era between ∼4100 and ∼3600 Ma produced melt volumes large enough to allow segregation of metal and troilite from silicate melts, possibly within continuous impact melt sheets contained in craters. The impact record after 3600 Ma does not display such assemblages, which suggests a decrease in the rate of large impact events or a catastrophic size reduction of the H chondrite parent asteroid at around this time.

Received 18 May 2009; accepted 12 February 2010; published 20 July 2010.

Citation: Wittmann, A., T. D. Swindle, L. C. Cheek, E. A. Frank, and D. A. Kring (2010), Impact cratering on the H chondrite parent asteroid, J. Geophys. Res., 115, E07009, doi:10.1029/2009JE003433.

Cited By

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