Nitrogen and Carbon Isotopes in Presolar Diamond Samples with Known Noble Gas Isotope Signature

Details Nitrogen and Carbon Isotopes in Presolar Diamond Samples with Known Noble Gas Isotope Signature Nitrogen and Carbon Isotopes in Presolar Diamond Samples with Known Noble Gas Isotope Signature

Jul 1994

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1994metic..29..545v&link_type=abstract

Meteoritics, vol. 29, no. 4, page 545

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Carbon, Combustion, Isotopes, Nitrogen, Noble Gases, Presolar Diamonds, Pyrolysis

Scientific paper

Since the first analyses of C and N isotopes in presolar diamonds with known noble gas isotope composition more than a decade ago [1,2] the investigation of these isotope systems in the diamonds were developed practicallly independently. During this time many interesting details in isotopic systematics of all the elements involved were found and reviewed [3-5]. The main conclusion now reached from a decade of investigation is that presolar diamonds from different meteorites are not identical but appear to consist of several populations [6-8]. Therefore a variety of circumstellar conditions may be involved through a type II supernova model is a good start point in trying to understand diamond synthesis [9]. The evidences from experimental data for all the isotope systems however are still not entirely consistent in the sense that we actually do not know how many carriers the diamonds represent and how the various noble gas carriers are related to those for nitrogen. The finding of a consensus between noble gas and light element analyses would seem to be a vital step so that more detailed nucleosynthesis models may be developed tor the diamond formation. A first point is to answer the question whether HL noble gases and light nitrogen must have been formed at the same astrophysical site. Another important achievement in terms of presolar diamond investigations during the last decade is the purity and number of samples now available. However a well known difficulty is that C, N, and noble gases are never measured all together on the same sample. The purpose of collaboration initiated in this paper is to exploit the availability of good quality samples and to go some way towards overcoming the difficulties of measurement technique incompatibility. We have analyzed three pure diamond samples separated at CalTech from Allende, Orgueil, (henceforth CT samples) and Leoville for N and C isotopic composition by stepped pyrolysis and combustion. The samples preparation and the noble gas results are described in detail elsewhere [7]. It should be noted that sample purity is supposed to be an important condition affecting release pattern of noble gases and N due to chemical reaction between coexisting minerals (for further discussion see [10]. Therefore we expected the influence of the reactions to be eliminated or significantly reduced for the samples studied here compared to those (OU samples) analyzed [6,8] before. Surprisingly we did not find any particular difference in C and N isotope systematics for the CT and OU samples. In particular they have the same carbon and N release profiles and isotope systematics (Figs. 1,2) although OU samples were measured without any attempt to remove spinel, SiC, or other oxidizing acid resistant phases. At low temperature pyrolysis steps, the CT samples have a similar peak of C, which we have previously correlated with P3 noble gases [11]. More important, release temperature of the light nitrogen from the CT samples (Fig. 2) is now confirmed to be significantly lower than that for HL noble gases supporting the hypothesis [11,12] of different carriers for the components or an entirely different release mechanism. Perhaps the most surprising outcome of our investigation was that none of the CT samples measured appeared to be 100% carbon; the reason for this apparent discrepancy ;the at present not clear. References: [1] Swart P. K. et al. (1983) Science, 220, 406-410. [2] Lewis R. S. et a1. (1983) Nature, 305, 767-771. [3] Pillinger C. T. (1993) Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond. A, 343, 73-76. [4] Anders E. and Zinner E. (1993) Meteoritics, 28, 490-514. [5] Ott U. (1993) Nature, 364, 25-33. [6] Russell S. S. et al. (1991) Science, 254, 1188-1191. [7] Huss G. R. and Lewis R. S. (1994) Meteoritics, in press. [8] Verchovsky A. B. et al. (1993) LPS XXV, 1435-1436. [9] Clayton D. D. et al. (1994) Astrophysics J., in press. [10] Verchovsky A. B. et al. (1994) Meteoritics, this volume. [11] Verchovsky A. B. et al. (1993) Meteoritics, 28, 52-53. [12] Verchovsky A. B. et a1. (1993) LPS XXIV, 1461-1462. Fig. 1 appears here. Fig. 2 appears here.

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