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The degree to which dust enrichment enhances the oxygen fugacity ( fO2) of a system otherwise solar in composition depends on the dust composition. Equilibrium calculations were performed at 10−3 bar in systems enriched by a factor of 104 in two fundamentally different types of dust to investigate the iron oxidation state in both cases. One type of dust, called SC for solar condensate, stopped equilibrating with solar gas at too high a temperature for FeO or condensed water to be stabilized in any form, and thus has the composition expected of a nebular condensate. The other has CI chondrite composition, appropriate for a parent body that accreted from SC dust and low-temperature ice. Upon total vaporization at 2300 K, both systems have high fO2, > IW. In the SC dust-enriched system, FeO of the bulk silicate reaches ~10 wt% at 1970 K but decreases to <1 wt% below 1500 K. The FeO undergoes reduction because consumption of gaseous oxygen by silicate recondensation causes a precipitous drop in fO2. Thus, enrichment in dust having the composition of likely nebular condensates cannot yield a sufficiently oxidizing environment to account for the FeO contents of chondrules. The fO2 of the system enriched in water-rich, CI dust, however, remains high throughout condensation, as gaseous water remains uncondensed until very low temperatures. This allows silicate condensates to achieve and maintain FeO contents of 27-35 wt%. Water-rich parent bodies are thus excellent candidate sources of chondrule precursors. Impacts on such bodies may have created the combination of high dust enrichment, total pressure, and fO2 necessary for chondrule formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

- For fayalite formation times of several thousand years, and systems enriched in water by a factor of ten relative to solar composition, 1 μm radius olivine grains could reach 2 mole% fayalite and 0.1 μm grains 5 mole% by nebular condensation, well short of the values appropriate for precursors of most chondrules and the values found in the matrices of unequilibrated ordinary chondrites. Even 10 μm olivine crystals could reach 30 mole% fayalite above 1100 K in solar gas if condensation of metallic nickel-iron were delayed sufficiently by supersaturation. Consideration of the surface tensions of several phases with equilibrium condensation temperatures above that of metallic iron shows that, even if they were supersaturated, they would still nucleate homogeneously above the equilibrium condensation temperature of metallic iron. This phenomenon would have provided nuclei for heterogeneous nucleation of metallic nickel-iron, thus preventing the latter from supersaturating significantly and preventing olivine from becoming fayalitic. Unless a way is found to make nebular regions far more oxidizing than in existing models, it is unlikely that chondrule precursors or the matrix olivine grains of unequilibrated ordinary chondrites obtained their fayalite contents by condensation processes. Perhaps stabilization of FeO occurred after condensation of water ice and accretion of icy planetesimals, during heating of the planetesimals and/or in hot, dense, water-rich vapor plumes generated by impacts on them. This would imply that FeO is a relatively young feature of nebular materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]