Potassium isotope heterogeneity in the early Solar System controlled by extensive evaporation and partial recondensation

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Volatiles are vital ingredients for a habitable planet. Angrite meteorites sample the most volatile-depleted planetesimal in the Solar System, particularly for the alkali elements. They are prime targets for investigating the formation of volatile-poor rocky planets, yet their exceptionally low volatile content presents a major analytical challenge. Here, we leverage improved sensitivity and precision of K isotopic analysis to constrain the mechanism of extreme K depletion (>99.8%) in angrites. In contrast with the isotopically heavy Moon and Vesta, we find that angrites are strikingly depleted in the heavier K isotopes, which is best explained by partial recondensation of vaporized K following extensive evaporation on the angrite parent body (APB) during magma-ocean stage. Therefore, the APB may provide a rare example of isotope fractionation controlled by condensation, rather than evaporation, at a planetary scale. Furthermore, nebula-wide K isotopic variations primarily reflect volatility-driven fractionations instead of presolar nucleosynthetic heterogeneity proposed previously.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
Artikelnummer7669
TidsskriftNature Communications
Vol/bind13
Antal sider10
ISSN2041-1723
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2022

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
We thank Julien Moureau, Ye Zhao, and Yvan Gérard for their assistance with mass spectrometer maintenance and troubleshooting, and Pierre Burckel for elemental concentration analyses. We also thank Deze Liu for the discussions and Haoxuan Sun for the measurements of silica contents in angrites. This work was supported by funding from the ERC under the European Community’s H2020 framework program/ERC grant agreement No. 101001282 (METAL) (F.M.), with additional support from the UnivEarthS Labex program (numbers: ANR-10-LABX-0023 and ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02) (F.M.), IPGP multidisciplinary program PARI, by Region île-de-France SESAME Grants no. 12015908, EX047016 (F.M.), and the IdEx Université de Paris grant, ANR-18-IDEX-0001, and the DIM ACAV+ (F.M.).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

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