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Published in

National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 25(105), p. 8542-8547, 2008

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0801518105

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Evidence for fractional crystallization of wadsleyite and ringwoodite from olivine melts in chondrules entrained in shock-melt veins.

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Peace River is one of the few shocked members of the L-chondrites clan that contains both high-pressure polymorphs of olivine, ringwoodite and wadsleyite, in diverse textures and settings in fragments entrained in shock-melt veins. Among these settings are complete olivine porphyritic chondrules. We encountered few squeezed and flattened olivine porphyritic chondrules entrained in shock-melt veins of this meteorite with novel textures and composition. The former chemically unzoned (Fa 24–26 ) olivine porphyritic crystals are heavily flattened and display a concentric intergrowth with Mg-rich wadsleyite of a very narrow compositional range (Fa 6 –Fa 10 ) in the core. Wadsleyite core is surrounded by a Mg-poor and chemically stark zoned ringwoodite (Fa 28 –Fa 38 ) belt. The wadsleyite–ringwoodite interface denotes a compositional gap of up to 32 mol % fayalite. A transmission electron microscopy study of focused ion beam slices in both regions indicates that the wadsleyite core and ringwoodite belt consist of granoblastic-like intergrowth of polygonal crystallites of both ringwoodite and wadsleyite, with wadsleyite crystallites dominating in the core and ringwoodite crystallites dominating in the belt. Texture and compositions of both high-pressure polymorphs are strongly suggestive of formation by a fractional crystallization of the olivine melt of a narrow composition (Fa 24–26 ), starting with Mg-rich wadsleyite followed by the Mg-poor ringwoodite from a shock-induced melt of olivine composition (Fa 24–26 ). Our findings could erase the possibility of the resulting unrealistic time scales of the high-pressure regime reported recently from other shocked L-6 chondrites.