Aqueous alteration

Abstract

In previous considerations of the effects that postaccretional heating can have on the record of nebular processes contained in meteorites, heat was not the only agent of alteration; of even greater importance in the evolution of some of the most compositionally primitive meteorites was the chemical reactivity of water at relatively low temperatures. Present knowledge of the nature of aqueous-alteration products in meteorites has improved to the point where the course of such alteration processes can be modeled. Isotopic studies show that at least some of this alteration took place very early in solar-system history.