Presolar grains minerals

Bulk techniques still have a place in the search for presolar components. Although they cannot identify the presolar grain directly, they can measure anomalous isotopic compositions, which can then be used as a tracer for separation procedures to identify the carrier. There are several isotopically anomalous components whose carriers have not been identified. For example, an anomalous chromium component enriched in 54Cr appears in acid residues of the most primitive chondrites. The carrier is soluble in hydrochloric acid and goes with the colloidal fraction of the residue, which means it is likely to be submicron in size (Podosck el al., 1997). Measurements of molybdenum and ruthenium in bulk primitive meteorites and leachates from primitive chondrites show isotopic anomalies that can be attributed to the -process on the one hand and to the r- and /7-processes on the other. The s-process anomalies in molybdenum and ruthenium correlate with one another, while the r- and /7-process anomalies do not. The amounts of -process molybdenum and ruthenium are consistent with their being carried in presolar silicon carbide, but they are released from bulk samples with treatments that should not dissolve that mineral. Thus, additional carriers of s-, r-, and/ -process elements are suggested (Dauphas et al., 2002). 

CAIs are composed of a variety of minerals, primarily hibonite, perovskite, melilite, spinel, aluminum- and titanium-rich diopside, anorthite, forsterite, and occasionally corundum or grossite. They also show significant enrichments in refractory trace elements. CAIs exhibit a host of isotopic anomalies inherited from incorporated presolar grains or from the early nebula itself. 

Matrix minerals are complex mixtures of silicates (especially olivine and pyroxene), oxides, sulfides, metal, phyllosilicates, and carbonates. The bulk chemical composition of matrix is broadly chondritic, and richer in volatile elements than the other chondrite components. Some chondrules have rims of adhering matrix that appear to have been accreted onto them prior to final assembly of the meteorite. Small lumps of matrix also occur in many chondrites. Presolar grains, described in Chapter 5, occur in the matrix. 

The has found wide use in studying presolar grains, IDPs, and Stardust samples, and in analyzing the fine-grained alteration minerals in carbonaceous chondrites. 

One of the enormous benefits of seeking diamond, or for that matter SiC, as presolar grain material is the incomparable resistance of the mineral to chemical attack. Other species are far more difficult but not impossible to isolate. 

The cosmic chemical memory interpretation was advanced by the writer as a superior way to think of these isotopic anomalies. This picture argued that the early solar system was not hot enough to vaporize the entirety of most solids but only their volatile parts and portions of their refractory Ca-and-Al-rich minerals. The refractory parts had survived to that time from their earlier condensation as stardust and were fused into the CAI assemblages found today in the meteorites. That fusion occurred while the gas that was vaporized from a dust-rich presolar mixture recondensed as the main minerals of the CAIs. The refractory cores, being stardust that had condensed even earlier within individual stars and supernovae, contain the isotope ratios from those distinct sources. When these cores were fused into the CAIs found today, the chemistry remembered the isotope ratios of the source presolar grains, so thatsolar-system rocks (CAIs) remembered their isotopic parentage. Hence the name cosmic chemical memory. See l60 for a fuller account of the historical role played by the experimental discovery of l60-rich minerals within the CAIs, and of how the memory of l60-richness was saved. 

Ott U (2002) Noble gases in meteorites— trapped components. Rev Mineral Geochem 47 71-100 Ott U, Begemaim F (2000) Spallation recoil and age of presolar grains in meteorites. Meteoritics Planet Sci 35 53-63... 

Presolar grains are foremost identified by their nonsolar isotopic composition. They are subsequently classified by the mineral phase carrying the isotopes and by the isotopic ratios of certain elements (mainly C, N, O, Si, Al, and Fe). Most abundant but the least understood are nanodiamonds. Best studied are the second most abundant SiC grains. Further phases include, in order of abundance, graphite, TiC, ZrC, MoC, RuC, FeC, Fe-Ni metal, Si3N4, corundum, spinel, hibonite, and Ti02. 

Holloway JR, Blank JG (1994) Application of experimental results to C-O-H species in natural melts. In MR Carroll, JR Holloway (eds.) Volatiles in magmas. Rev Miner 30 187-230 Holser WT (1977) Catastrophic chemical events in the history of the ocean. Nature 267 403 08 Holser WT, Kaplan IR (1966) Isotope geochemistry of sedimentary sulfates. Chem Geol 1 93-135 Holt BD, Engelkemeier AG (1970) Thermal decomposition of barium sulfate to sulfur dioxide for mass spectrometric analysis. Anal Chem 42 1451-1453 Hoppe P, Zinner E (2000) Presolar dust grains from meteorites and their stellar sources. J Geophys Res Space Phys 105 10371-10385... 

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