Mineralogy and noble gas isotopes of micrometeorites collected from Antarctic snow

Okazaki Ryuji

Noguchi Takaaki

Tsujimoto Shin-ichi

Tobimatsu Yu

Nakamura Tomoki

Ebihara Mitsuru

Itoh Shoichi

Nagahara Hiroko

Tachibana Shogo

Terada Kentaro

Yabuta Hikaru

Earth, Planets and Space

We have investigated seven micrometeorites (MMs) from Antarctic snow collected in 2003 and 2010 by means of electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, micro-Raman spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation, and noble-gas isotope analysis. Isotopic ratios of He and Ne indicate that the noble gases in these MMs are mostly of solar wind (SW). Based on the release patterns of SW 4He, which should reflect the degree of heating during atmospheric entry, the seven MMs were classified into three types including two least heated, three moderately heated, and two severely heated MMs. The heating degrees are well correlated to their mineralogical features determined by TEM observation. One of the least heated MMs is composed of phyllosilicates, whereas the other consists of anhydrous minerals within which solar flare tracks were observed. The two severely heated MMs show clear evidence of atmospheric heating such as partial melt of the uppermost surface layer in one and abundant patches of dendritic magnetite and Si-rich glass within an olivine grain in the other. It is noteworthy that a moderately heated MM composed of a single crystal of olivine has a 3He/4He ratio of 8.44 × 10−4, which is higher than the SW value of 4.64 × 10−4, but does not show a cosmogenic 21Ne signature such as 20Ne/21Ne/22Ne = 12.83/0.0284/1. The isotopic compositions of He and Ne in this sample cannot be explained by mixing of a galactic cosmic ray (GCR)-produced component and SW gases. The high 3He/4He ratio without cosmogenic 21Ne signature likely indicates the presence of a 3He-enriched component derived from solar energetic particles.

Antarctic micrometeorites

Noble gas

Transmission electron microscopy

Atmospheric entry heating

Solar energetic particles

eng

Springer Open

© 2015 Okazaki et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.

[ISSN] 1880-5981

[DOI] 10.1186/s40623-015-0261-8

[DOI] https://doi.org/10.1186/s40623-015-0261-8