Article contents
5. The Chemical Relationship between Howardites and the Silicate Fraction of Mesosiderites
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
Abstract
Analyses of eleven major elements in five howardite samples and in the silicate fraction of seven mesosiderites are presented in a recalculated form and compared. The mesosiderite silicate fractions show distinct differences in chemical composition from the howardites, but the average Ca/Al determined for mesosiderites (1.05), which differs from most values previously published, is close to that typical of howardites (1.08). The inverse Ca/Mg relationship in the howardites is present also in the mesosiderites, the trend being displaced relative to that of the howardites but parallel to it. The chemical differences confirm that mesosiderites are not mixtures of howardite and metal. The Ca/Al and Ca/Mg relationships suggest that the two meteorite groups were subject to similar genetic controls, and may therefore have had a common parent body. Such a body is required by the cooling rate of the metal of mesosiderites to have been larger than any known asteroid.
- Type
- Part VII. Differentiated Meteorites
- Information
- International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 39: Comets, Asteroids, Meteorites: Interrelations, Evolution and Origins , December 1977 , pp. 445 - 450
- Copyright
- Copyright © A.H. Delsemme 1977
References
- 3
- Cited by