Petrologic constraints on the surface processes on asteroid 4 Vesta and on excavation depths of diogenite fragments

Details Petrologic constraints on the surface processes on asteroid 4 Vesta and on excavation depths of diogenite fragments Petrologic constraints on the surface processes on asteroid 4 Vesta and on excavation depths of diogenite fragments

Mar 1993

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1993lpi....24..583g&link_type=abstract

In Lunar and Planetary Inst., Twenty-Fourth Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. Part 2: G-M p 583-584 (SEE N94-16173 03-91)

Physics

Achondrites, Asteroid Belts, Excavation, Meteoritic Composition, Petrology, Protoplanets, Vesta Asteroid, Basalt, Breccia, Crystallization, Magma, Pyroxenes, Surface Layers

Scientific paper

The eucrite-howardite-diogenite meteorite groups are though to be related by magmatic processes. Asteroid 4 Vesta has been proposed as the parent body for these basaltic achondrite meteorites. The similarity of the planetesimal's surface composition to eucrite and diogenite meteorites and the large size of the asteroid (r = 250 km) make it an attractive source, but its position in the asteroid belt far from the known resonances from which meteorites originate make a relation between Vesta and eucrite-howardite-giogenite group problematic. It has been proposed that diogenites are low-Ca pyroxene-rich cumulates that crystallized from a magnesian parent (identified in howardite breccias), and this crystallization process led to evolved eucrite derivative magmas. This eucrite-diogenite genetic relationship places constraints on the physical conditions under which crystallization occurred. Elevated pressure melting experiments on magnesian eucrite parent compositions show that the minimum pressure at which pyroxene crystallization could lead to the observed compositions of main series eucrites is 500 bars, equivalent to a depth of 135 km in a 4 Vesta-sized eucrite parent body. Therefore, the observation of diogenite on the surface of 4 Vesta requires a post-crystallization process that excavates diogenite cumulate from depth. The discovery of diogenite asteroidal fragments is consistent with an impact event on 4 Vesta that penetrated the deep interior of this planetesimal.

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