We report occurrences of coesite in a martian meteorite, expanding previously-reported silica polymorphs such as stishovite (El Goresy et al., 2000), seifertite (Sharp et al., 1999; Goresy et al., 2008), and post-stishovite (El Goresy et al., 2000). The coesite was found in the shock-induced melt regions of NWA 8657, usually coexisting with deformed quartz and silica glass. Three morphological types of coesite have been identified: (I) in a silica-maskelynite assemblage, (II) needle grains, and (III) granular grains embedded in maskelynite. Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) shows that all types of coesite appear distributed in silica glass and/or nano-phase maskelynite. The stishovite-like morphology of Type II coesite and the presence of deformed quartz suggest coesite to have inverted from stishovite during decompression. The impact-induced peak pressures and temperatures are estimated at similar to 18-30 GPa and similar to 2000 degrees C respectively, based on static high pressure experiments (Langenhorst and Deutsch, 2012; Zhang et al., 1996). The polymorphs aggregates of silica in NWA 8657 indicate that the shock-induced melts in this meteorite cooled slower than those in other stishovite-bearing martian meteorites, but fast enough to preserve coesite. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Publication name |
GEOCHIMICA ET COSMOCHIMICA ACTA Volume: 286 Pages: 404-417 DOI: 10.1016/j.gca.2020.07.021 Published: OCT 1 2020 |
Author(s) |
Hu, Sen; Li, Yang; Gu, Lixin; Tang, Xu; Zhang, Ting; Yamaguchi, Akira; Lin, Yangting; Changela, Hitesh |
Corresponding author(s) |
HU Sen husen@mail.iggcas.ac.cn -Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Geol & Geophys, Key Lab Earth & Planetary Phys, Beijing 100029, Peoples R China -Chinese Acad Sci, Innovat Acad Earth Sci, Beijing 100029, Peoples R China -Univ Chinese Acad Sci, Coll Earth & Planetary Sci, Beijing 100049, Peoples R China |
Author(s) from IGCAS |
LI Yang | View here for the details
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