Non-chemically Pure Magnetites Produced from Thermal Decomposition of Ankerites

Mathematics – Logic

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0424 Biosignatures And Proxies

Scientific paper

It has been claimed that chemically pure magnetites (Fe3O4) can be obtained from thermal decomposition of (Fe, Mg, Ca)CO3 (Golden et al., 2004). Such an observation is critical, since it opens the possibility of an inorganic way of formation of the magnetites found on Martian meteorite ALH84001. Such a chemical purity is one of the parameters used, so far, to recognize bacterial origin of natural magnetites (Thomas-Keptra et al., 2001), since it has been demonstrated that biologically-controlled magnetites are chemically pure (Bazylinski and Frankel, 2004) . However, while Golden et al. (2004) obtained pure magnetite from an almost pure precursor, the ankerite cores in ALH84001 in which magnetites are embedded are far from being chemically pure, since they contain considerable amounts of Ca and Mg (Kopp and Humayun, 2003). In this study we have performed several experiments to analyze the chemical purity of magnetites produced by thermal decomposition of four ankerite samples sinthetized in the laboratory, and containing different amounts of Ca, Fe and Mg. Such a thermal decomposition was achieved by two procedures: (1) by heating the samples at 470°C under CO2 pressure and (2) by decomposing the ankerite "in situ" under the TEM (Transmission electron Microscopy) electron beam. Magnetite produced by the first procedure was analyzed by XRD to determine whether or not the resulting solid was a mixture of oxides or rather a solid solution of (Ca, Fe and Mg)oxide. Magnetites formed by the two methods were studied by High Resolution TEM. The chemical composition of about 20 crystals of each experiment was analyzed by EDAX. Under our experimental conditions, ankerites decomposed in magnetite crystals of about 5 nanometers in size. Magentite crystals arranged to keep the morphology of the precursor. Our results confirm that any of these magnetites is chemically pure, but rather, each one of them is a solid solution of Ca and Mg. Therefore, chemically pure magnetites found in the meteorite ALH84001 cannot be obtained, as Golden et al. (2004) proposed, just by the thermal decomposition of the (Fe, Ca, Mg)CO3 precursor in which they were embedded.

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