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Potassium isotope heterogeneity in the early Solar System controlled by extensive evaporation and partial recondensation

Volatiles are vital ingredients for a habitable planet. Angrite meteorites sample the most volatile-depleted planetesimal in the Solar System, particularly for the alkali elements. They are prime targets for investigating the formation of volatile-poor rocky planets, yet their exceptionally low vola...

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Autores principales: Hu, Yan, Moynier, Frédéric, Bizzarro, Martin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9744853/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36509778
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35362-7
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author Hu, Yan
Moynier, Frédéric
Bizzarro, Martin
author_facet Hu, Yan
Moynier, Frédéric
Bizzarro, Martin
author_sort Hu, Yan
collection PubMed
description Volatiles are vital ingredients for a habitable planet. Angrite meteorites sample the most volatile-depleted planetesimal in the Solar System, particularly for the alkali elements. They are prime targets for investigating the formation of volatile-poor rocky planets, yet their exceptionally low volatile content presents a major analytical challenge. Here, we leverage improved sensitivity and precision of K isotopic analysis to constrain the mechanism of extreme K depletion (>99.8%) in angrites. In contrast with the isotopically heavy Moon and Vesta, we find that angrites are strikingly depleted in the heavier K isotopes, which is best explained by partial recondensation of vaporized K following extensive evaporation on the angrite parent body (APB) during magma-ocean stage. Therefore, the APB may provide a rare example of isotope fractionation controlled by condensation, rather than evaporation, at a planetary scale. Furthermore, nebula-wide K isotopic variations primarily reflect volatility-driven fractionations instead of presolar nucleosynthetic heterogeneity proposed previously.
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spelling pubmed-97448532022-12-14 Potassium isotope heterogeneity in the early Solar System controlled by extensive evaporation and partial recondensation Hu, Yan Moynier, Frédéric Bizzarro, Martin Nat Commun Article Volatiles are vital ingredients for a habitable planet. Angrite meteorites sample the most volatile-depleted planetesimal in the Solar System, particularly for the alkali elements. They are prime targets for investigating the formation of volatile-poor rocky planets, yet their exceptionally low volatile content presents a major analytical challenge. Here, we leverage improved sensitivity and precision of K isotopic analysis to constrain the mechanism of extreme K depletion (>99.8%) in angrites. In contrast with the isotopically heavy Moon and Vesta, we find that angrites are strikingly depleted in the heavier K isotopes, which is best explained by partial recondensation of vaporized K following extensive evaporation on the angrite parent body (APB) during magma-ocean stage. Therefore, the APB may provide a rare example of isotope fractionation controlled by condensation, rather than evaporation, at a planetary scale. Furthermore, nebula-wide K isotopic variations primarily reflect volatility-driven fractionations instead of presolar nucleosynthetic heterogeneity proposed previously. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-12-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9744853/ /pubmed/36509778 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35362-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Hu, Yan
Moynier, Frédéric
Bizzarro, Martin
Potassium isotope heterogeneity in the early Solar System controlled by extensive evaporation and partial recondensation
title Potassium isotope heterogeneity in the early Solar System controlled by extensive evaporation and partial recondensation
title_full Potassium isotope heterogeneity in the early Solar System controlled by extensive evaporation and partial recondensation
title_fullStr Potassium isotope heterogeneity in the early Solar System controlled by extensive evaporation and partial recondensation
title_full_unstemmed Potassium isotope heterogeneity in the early Solar System controlled by extensive evaporation and partial recondensation
title_short Potassium isotope heterogeneity in the early Solar System controlled by extensive evaporation and partial recondensation
title_sort potassium isotope heterogeneity in the early solar system controlled by extensive evaporation and partial recondensation
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9744853/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36509778
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35362-7
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