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This volume contains abstracts that have been accepted for presentation at the Ninth Annual V. M. Goldschmidt Conference, August 22-27, 1999, hosted by the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The meeting is a forum for presenting and discussing new chemical and isotopic measurements, experimental and theoretical results, and discoveries in geochemistry and cosmochemistry.
This CD-ROM contains the abstracts and associated files for the Eleventh Annual V.M Goldschmidt Conference. Topics include: Organic Geochemistry; Metamorphic Processes; Igneous Processes; Stable and Radiogenic Isotopes; Planetary Geochemistry and Mineralogy; Mineralogy and Crystallography; Ore Deposits; and Aqueous Geochemistry.
Topics considered include: Subduction of the Aseismic Cocos Ridge Displaced Magma Sources Beneath the Cordillera de Talamanca, Costa Rica; Topography of Transition Zone Discontinuities: A Measure of 'Olivine' Content and Evidence for Deep Cratonic Roots; Uranium Enrichment in Lithospheric Mantle: Case Studies from French Massif Central; Rare-Earth-Element Anomalies in the Decollement Zone of the nankai Accretionary Prism, Japan: Evidence of Fluid Flow?; Rare Earth Elements in Japanese Mudrocks: The Influence of Provenance; The Evolution of Seawater Strontium Isotopes in the Last Hundred Million Years: Reinterpretation and Consequences for Erosion and Climate Models; From Pat to Tats: The Lead Isotope Legacy in the Studies of the Continental Crust-Upper Mantle System; Geochronology of the Jack Hills Detrital Zircons by Precise Uranium-Lead Isotope-Dilution Analysis of Crystal Fragments; Iridium in the Oceans; The Helium-Heat-Lead Paradox; Control of Distribution Patterns of Heavy Metals in Ganga Plain Around Kanpur Region, India, by Fluvial Geomorphic Domains; Geochemical and Isotopic Features of Ferrar Magmatic Provience (Victoria Land, Antarctica); Rare Earth Elements in Marine Fine-Grained Sediments from the Northwestern Portuguese Shelf (Atlantic); Aspects of Arc Fluxes; General Kinetic Model for Dolomite Precipitation Rate with Application to the Secular History of Seawater Composition; High-Precision Uranium-series Chronology from Speleothems; Trace-Element Modeling of Aqueous Fluid-Peridotite Interaction in the Mantle Wedge of Subduction Zones; Rainfall Variations in Southeastern Australia over the Last 500,000 Years from Speleothem Deposition; The Role of Water in High-Pressure Fluids; The Kinetic Conditions of Metamorphic Minearogenesis: Evidence from Minerals and Assemblages.
During the three year grant period we made excellent progress in our study of the abundances and isotopic compositions of Hg and other volatile trace elements in extraterrestrial materials. At the time the grant started, our collaborating PI, Dante Lauretts, was a postdoctoral research associate working with Peter Buseck at Arizona State University. The work on chondritic Hg was done in collaboration with Dante Lauretta and Peter Buseck and this study was published in Lauretta et a1 (2001a). In July, 2001 Dante Lauretta accepted a position as an Assistant Professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. His funding was transferred and this grant has supported much of his research activities during his first two years at the U of A. Several other papers are in preparation and will be published soon. We presented papers on this topic at Goldschmidt Conferences, the Lunar and Planetary Science Conferences, and the Annual Meetings of the Meteoritical Society. The work done under this grant has spurred several new directions of inquiry, which we are still pursuing. Included in this paper are the studies of bulk abundances and isotopic compositions of metreoritic Mercury, and the development of a thermal analysis ICP-MS technique applied to thermally liable elements.
Three years into exploration of sediments in Gale crater on Mars, the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity has provided data on several modes and episodes of diagenetic mineral formation. Curiosity determines mineralogy principally by X-ray diffraction (XRD), but with supporting data from thermal-release profiles of volatiles, bulk chemistry, passive spectroscopy, and laser-induced breakdown spectra of targeted spots. Mudstones at Yellowknife Bay, within the landing ellipse, contain approximately 20% phyllosilicate that we interpret as authigenic smectite formed by basalt weathering in relatively dilute water, with associated formation of authigenic magnetite as in experiments by Tosca and Hurowitz [Goldschmidt 2014]. Varied interlayer spacing of the smectite, collapsed at approximately 10 A or expanded at approximately 13.2 A, is evidence of localized diagenesis that may include partial intercalation of metal-hydroxyl groups in the approximately 13.2 A material. Subsequent sampling of stratigraphically higher Windjana sandstone revealed sediment with multiple sources, possible concentration of detrital magnetite, and minimal abundance of diagenetic minerals. Most recent sampling has been of lower strata at Mount Sharp, where diagenesis is widespread and varied. Here XRD shows that hematite first becomes abundant and products of diagenesis include jarosite and cristobalite. In addition, bulk chemistry identifies Mg-sulfate concretions that may be amorphous or crystalline. Throughout Curiosity's traverse, later diagenetic fractures (and rarer nodules) of mm to dm scale are common and surprisingly constant and simple in Ca-sulfate composition. Other sulfates (Mg,Fe) appear to be absent in this later diagenetic cycle, and circumneutral solutions are indicated. Equally surprising is the rarity of gypsum and common occurrence of bassanite and anhydrite. Bassanite, rare on Earth, plays a major role at this location on Mars. Dehydration of gypsum to bassanite in the dry atmosphere of Mars has been proposed but considered unlikely based on lab studies of dehydration kinetics in powdered samples. Dehydration is even less likely for bulk vein samples, as lab data show dehydration rates one to two orders of magnitude slower in bulk samples than in powders. On Mars, exposure ages of 100 Ma or more may be a significant factor in dehydration of hydrous phases.
Mercury’s depletion in O and abundance of S substituting in as S2- has fundamental effects on the physicochemical properties of minerals and melts because O2- is the dominant rock-forming anion. These changes exert a first order effect on planetary body evolution, including the initial distribution of elements, crystallization paths, stability of phases, and mineral chemistry. Experimental and empirical data have revealed that most nominally lithophile elements become more chalcophile and/or siderophile at reducing conditions, which can be visualized through a re-interpreted Goldschmidt classification table prepared for McCubbin & Anzures’s Treatises of Geochemistry 3rd edition chapter under review. Additionally, the S bonding environment influences Mercurian phase equilibria by decreasing the stability of forsterite and anorthite while increasing the stability of enstatite, silica, and albite through re-projection of silicate ternaries.
A preliminary development of a mathematical model to compute probabilities of thermodynamic profiles is presented. The model assumes an exponential expression for pressure and utilizes the hydrostatic law and equation of state in the determination of density and temperature. It is shown that each thermodynamic variable can be factored into the produce of steady state and perturbation functions. The steady state functions have profiles similar to those of the 1962 standard atmosphere while the perturbation functions oscillate about 1. Limitations of the model and recommendations for future work are presented.
Laser remote sensing from aircraft has become a very important technique for observing ozone in the environment. NASA Langley has an active aircraft based research program which presently uses Nd:YAG-pumped dye lasers that are then doubled into the UV to probe both the stratosphere and troposphere for ozone using the differential absorption lidar (DIAL) technique. This large system can only fly on large (NASA DC-8, Electra) aircraft and has been deployed on many missions throughout the world. In the future it will be desirable to fly autonomous, lightweight, compact ozone DIAL instruments on unpiloted atmospheric vehicles (UAV) aircraft. Such aircraft could fly at high altitudes for extended times collecting science data without risk to the operator. Cost for such missions may be substantially reduced over present large aircraft based missions. Presently there are no ozone DIAL systems capable of flying on an UAV aircraft. In order to facilitate UAV missions, small more efficient laser transmitters need to be developed that emit approximately 25mJ near 300nm for each of the DIAL 'on' and 'off' line pulses. Also lightweight, compact DIAL receiver systems need to be built and demonstrated. Such receiver systems may incorporate fiber optic coupled telescopes for maximum light gathering capability per unit area, high quantum efficiency gated photomultiplier tubes with reasonable gain and very narrow-band filters for background light rejection with high light throughput. A compact high-performance 16-bit digitizer and a data storage system are also required. A conceptional design of such a UAV DIAL instrument is presented. Here a pulsed UV laser emits pulses into the atmosphere where elastic scattering occurs which results in light being scattered into the receiver telescope. The subject of this paper is the design, construction and testing of a robust, compact ozone DIAL receiver system that would be a prototype for eventual use in a UAV aircraft.
Measurements of global atmosphere ozone concentrations call for flexible lidar systems that can be operated from an unpiloted atmospheric vehicle (UAV) to reduce the cost of measurement missions. A lidar receiver system consisting of a fiber-optic-coupled telescope has been designed and tested for this purpose. The system weight is 13 kg and its volume of 0.06 m 3 would fit into the payload compartment of a Perseus B UAV. The optical efficiency of the telescope is 37 percent at 288 nm and 64 percent at 300 nm. Atmospheric measurements with a DIAL laser system have been performed, and the measured ozone density has matched the data from ozonesondes to an altitude of 7 km.
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