Pristine extraterrestrial material with unprecedented nitrogen isotopic variation.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Briani G
PROVIDER: S-EPMC2705565 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jun
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Pristine extraterrestrial material with unprecedented nitrogen isotopic variation.
Briani Giacomo G Gounelle Matthieu M Marrocchi Yves Y Mostefaoui Smail S Leroux Hugues H Quirico Eric E Meibom Anders A
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20090615 26
Pristine meteoritic materials carry light element isotopic fractionations that constrain physiochemical conditions during solar system formation. Here we report the discovery of a unique xenolith in the metal-rich chondrite Isheyevo. Its fine-grained, highly pristine mineralogy has similarity with interplanetary dust particles (IDPs), but the volume of the xenolith is more than 30,000 times that of a typical IDP. Furthermore, an extreme continuum of N isotopic variation is present in this xenoli ...[more]
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