Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p51a1188m&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P51A-1188
Physics
1100 Geochronology, 1115 Radioisotope Geochronology, 1140 Thermochronology, 3662 Meteorite Mineralogy And Petrology (1028, 6240), 6225 Mars
Scientific paper
Mars is thought to have experienced intense volcanism, impact cratering and fluvial resurfacing during its first ~1.5 Byr, followed by a less-energetic, colder period. Rare meteoritic samples of the Martian crust provide some of the only direct evidence by which to test and develop models of the paleoenvironmental evolution of the planet, its potential habitability by life, and the process of interplanetary mass transport. Thermal histories of Martian meteorites provide crucial evidence bearing not only on long-term, ambient near-surface conditions on Mars, but also on whether meteoroids can be ejected from their large parent bodies without significant heating, a favorable condition for exogenesis (including panspermia) hypotheses. One of the best samples to address these issues is Martian meteorite ALH84001, because it has the oldest crystallization age of ~4.5 Ga, is thought to have resided near the surface since ~4.0 Ga, and has been suggested to have experienced no significant heating during or after its ejection from Mars at 15 Ma. To better constrain the thermal evolution and shock metamorphic history of ALH84001, we applied (U-Th)/He thermochronometry to single grains of merrillite and chlorapatite from ALH84001. The (U-Th)/He ages of individual phosphate grains in ALH84001 range from 60 Ma to 1.8 Ga, with a weighted mean of ~830 Ma. This broad age distribution reflects multiple diffusion domains, and requires a relatively high-temperature resetting event younger than ~60 Ma. These new data are combined with the published whole-rock (maskelynite as a main Ar reservoir) 40Ar/39Ar age spectra which show 5-8 % fractional loss of 40Ar since 4.0 Ga. He diffusion in both terrestrial and extraterrestrial apatite has a significantly higher activation energy (138 ~ 184 kJ/mol) than Ar diffusion in maskelynite (75 kJ/mol), leading to an important "kinetic crossover" in fractional loss contours for these systems. Taken together, the phosphate (U-Th)/He and maskelynite 40Ar/39Ar ages require both very low surface temperatures on Mars, and one or more short-lived, high-temperature, shock events after 4.0 Ga. We suggest that the last shock event occurred with ejection of ALH84001 from Mars, and reached a peak temperature of approximately 400 °C. These results undermine the proposed low-temperature ejection hypothesis for ALH84001, but support long-lived extremely cold Martian surface temperatures.
Min Kyoung
Reiners Peter W.
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