2010 Annual Research Report

 

Dr. Goodrich continued her work on the ureilite meteorites, focusing on several aspects of this enigmatic primitive achondrite group with the overall aim of understanding the formation, igneous processing and the dynamical evolution of the ureilite parent body.  She finished and published her work on ⁵³Mn-⁵³Cr and ²⁶Al-²⁶Mg ages of a feldspathic lithology in polymict ureilites, producing a high-precision age date of 5 Myr (million years) after formation of CAI (the earliest condensates from the Solar Nebula).  This date may record the catastrophic breakup of the ureilite parent asteroid.  She also continued a detailed investigation into the petrography and major, minor and trace element compositions of metallic phases in ureilites, aimed at understanding metal/silicate fractionation on the ureilite parent body (core formation).  This work has now been completed and is currently being written up for publication.  The new trace element data (the first such data ever obtained for metal in ureilites) provides important new constraints on models of ureilite petrogenesis.

 

In 2010 she also began work on the remarkable new meteorite, Almahata Sitta, an anomalous polymict ureilite that fell in Sudan in 2008.  This meteorite provides unweathered samples of a large variety of ureilite lithologies.  In an abstract presented at the annual meeting of the Meteoritical Society in July, 2010, she presented results of the first studies of well-preserved metallic phases in some of these samples, and is continuing this work.  Even more remarkably, Almahata Sitta appears to be a complex meteoritic breccia with a large component of non-ureilitic clasts – in particular, various enstatite and ordinary chondrites, attesting to a unique dynamical history.  With Dr. William Hartmann of PSI, Dr. Goodrich established an Almahata Sitta working group that now includes Drs. David O'Brien, Stuart Weidenschilling and Mark Sykes of PSI, as well as Dr. Patrick Michel of Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, Nice.  This group produced an abstract that will be presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in Houston, TX in March 2011.  Dr. Goodrich will also present two abstracts describing her recently modeling of the igneous petrogenesis of ureilites.  The PSI Almahata Sitta research group is now working on a proposal to be submitted to the NASA Origins of Solar Systems program.

 

In addition, Dr. Goodrich has continued to work on several aspects of martian meteorites.  In 2010, she presented a talk at LPSC describing new methods of analyzing melt inclusions in olivine in nakhlites, with the aim of constraining alkali and halogen element abundances in the martian mantle.  She will continue this work, along with collaborators Dr. Allan Treiman and Justin Filiberto, in 2011.  She also studied melt inclusions in olivine in olivine-phyric shergottite LAR 06319, using them to determine the composition of the LAR parent magma.  A paper presenting this work has been submitted for publication.  She also worked with PSI senior scientist Dr. Melissa Lane, contributing petrologic expertise in the interpretation of high-magnesian olivine outcrops identified by Dr. Lane in the Argyre basin.  This work will also continue in 2011-2012.

 

 

Papers:

Zolensky M., Herrin J., Mikouchi T., Ohsumi K., Friederich J., Steele A., Rumble D., Fries M., Sandford S., Milam S., Hagiya K., Takeda H., Satake W., Kurihara T., Colbert M., Hanna R., Maisano J., Ketcham R., Goodrich C.A., Le L., Robinson G-A., Martinez J., Ross D.K., Jenniskens P, and Shaddad M. (2010) Mineralogy and petrography of the Almahata Sitta ureilite. Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 45, 1618-1637.

Goodrich C.A., Hutcheon I.D., Kita N.T., Huss G.R., Cohen B.A. and Keil K. (2010) ⁵³Mn-⁵³Cr and ²⁶Al-²⁶Mg ages of a feldspathic lithology in polymict ureilites. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett.  295, 531-340.
 

Abstracts:

Goodrich C.A., Goldstein J., Kita N.T., Mikouchi T., Zolensky M., Herrin J., Ash R.D., McDonough W.F. and Jennsikens P.M. (2010) Metal in ureilitic fragments of Almahata Sitta. Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 45, Suppl. (Annual Meeting of Meteoritical Society), #5319..

Carraro A., Fioretti A.M, Domeneghetti M.C., Raepsaet C., Bureau H., Camara F., Goodrich C.A. (2010) Hydrogen contents in clinopyroxene from Martian meteorites (Nakhlites) using elastic recoil detecion analysis. 89° Congresso Società Italiana di Mineralogia e Petrologia, Ferrara 13-15 Settembre 2010. 

Goodrich C.A., Treiman A.H., Filiberto J, and Jercinovic M.J. (2010) The Nakhla parent magma: old problems, new approaches. Lunar Planet. Sci. 41, #1387.

Goodrich C.A. (2010) Late orthopyroxene + metal assemblages in ureilites, brachinites, and other olivine-rich achondrites. Lunar Planet. Sci. 41, #1091.

Lane M.D. and Goodrich C.A. (2010) High magnesian olivine in the Argyre rim: derived from a primitive magma? Lunar Planet. Sci. 41, #2094.

Basu Sarbadhikari A., Goodrich C.A., Liu Y. and Taylor L.A. (2010) Melt inclusions in olivine-phyric shergottite LAR 06319: important considerations in using melt inclusions to retrieve parent magmas. Lunar Planet. Sci. 41, #1369.

Ash R.D., Goodrich C.A., Van Orman J.A. and McDonough W.F. (2010) Petrography and siderophile geochemistry of metal and sulfide in ureilites. Lunar Planet. Sci. 41, #1302.

Hayden L.A., Van Orman J.A., McDonough W.F., Ash R.D. and Goodrich C.A. (2010) Trace element partitioning in the Fe-S-C system. Lunar Planet. Sci. 41, #1302.