Three Dimensional Petrography of Kernouve: A Story of Vein Formation, Compaction, and Metamorphism
Metallic veins in ordinary chondrites, like those found in Kernouve (H5, S1), have been attributed to impact or shock processes on the parent body. However, Kernouve is widely known to exhibit few traditional signs of shock loading and has a very old {sup 39}Ar-{sup 40}Ar age (4.46 Ga), making the significance of vein formation in Kernouve unclear. One possibility is early vein formation followed by partial obliteration due to thermal metamorphism. We examine this scenario here. The metal vein in Kernouve can be explained as a pre-metamorphic shock-induced structure, given the evidence for current weak compaction and low shock stage. However, it is not clear how one explains high porosity and low shock stage if the meteorite experienced early shock sufficiently strong to mobilize metal into a vein-like structure. Some combination of unusual conditions during shock (e.g. high temperatures) or mobility of metal during metamorphism may be needed. One possible mechanism occurring early on the H chondrite parent body follows: blocks of slightly indurated but porous material were disturbed by an impact which caused a physical concentration of metallic phases akin to slickensides. Shearing of these materials caused the warm, ductile metal grains to be concentrated on rock surfaces. This process would have imparted the rocks with indicators cited by as shock induced. This event happened early in the history of the chondrite otherwise shearing forces would have imparted a preferred orientation upon the metal grains. Subsequent annealing due to radiogenic heating erased any preferential orientation and further coalesced the vein metal. The final compaction of the material occurred yielding the porosity seen in the samples today. The material escaped other major shock episodes.