Microprobe analyses of rare earth element fractionation in meteoritic minerals
- Benjamin, T. M.
- Duffy, C. J.
- Maggiore, C. J.
- Rogers, P. S. Z.
- Woolum, D. S.
- Burnett, D. S.
- Murrell, M. T.
DOIAbstract
Two meteorites were analyzed by PIXE with the Los Alamos nuclear microprobe. The enstatite achondrite Peña Blanca Spring and the ordinary chondrite St Severin were chosen as likely candidates for use in ^(244)Pu(t_(l/2)=82 my) cosmochronology and geochronology. These applications require the meteoritic minerals to have unfractionated actinides and lanthanides relative to “cosmic” elemental abundance ratios. The PIXE analyses produced evidence of actinide-lanthanide fractionation in Peña Blanca Spring oldhamite (CaS) whereas the St Severin phosphates, whitlockite and chlorapatite, do not exhibit this fractionation
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