Search

The thermal history of carbon phases, including graphite and diamond, in the ureilite meteorites has implications for the formation, igneous evolution, and impact disruption of their parent body early in the history of the Solar System. Geothermometry data were obtained by micro-Raman spectroscopy on graphite in Almahata Sitta (AhS) ureilites AhS 72, AhS 209b and AhS A135A from the University of Khartoum collection. In these samples, graphite shows G-band peak centers between 1578 and 1585 cm−1 and the full width at half maximum values correspond to a crystallization temperature of 1266 °C for graphite for AhS 209b, 1242 °C for AhS 72, and 1332 °C for AhS A135A. Recent work on AhS 72 and AhS 209b has shown graphite associated with nanodiamonds and argued that this assemblage formed due to an impact-event. Our samples show disordered graphite with a crystalline domain size ranging between about 70 and 140 nm. The nanometric grain-size of the recrystallized graphite indicates that it records a shock event and thus argues that the temperatures we obtained are related to such an event, rather than the primary igneous processing of the ureilite parent body.

Tertiary volcanic rocks in northwestern Firoozeh, Iran (the Meshkan triangular structural unit), constitute vast outcrops (up to 250 km2) of high-Mg basaltic andesites to dacites that are associated with high-Nb hawaiites and mugearites. Whole-rock 40Ar/39Ar ages show a restricted range of 24.1 ± 0.4-22.9 ± 0.5 Ma for the volcanic rocks. The initial ratios of 87Sr/86Sr and 143Nd/144Nd vary from 0.703800 to 0.704256 and 0.512681 to 0.512877, respectively, in the high-Mg basaltic andesites-dacites. High-Th contents (up to 11 ppm) and Sr/Y values (27-100) and the isotopic composition of the subalkaline high-Mg basaltic andesites-dacites indicate derivation from a mantle modified by slab and sediment partial melts. Evidence such as reverse zoning and resorbed textures and high Ni and Cr contents in the evolved samples indicate that magma mixing with mafic melts and concurrent fractional crystallization lead to the compositional evolution of this series. The high-Nb hawaiites and mugearites, by contrast, have a sodic alkaline affinity and are silica undersaturated; they are also enriched in Nb (up to 47 ppm) and a wide range of incompatible trace elements, including LILE, LREE, and HFSE. Geochemistry and Sr- Nd isotopic compositions of the high-Nb hawaiites and mugearites suggest derivation from a mantle source affected by lower degrees of slab melts. Post-orogenic slab break-off is suggested to have prompted the asthenospheric upwelling that triggered partial melting in mantle metasomatized by slab-derived melts.

The core of the Tauern tectonic window (Eastern Alps) consists of pre-Alpine granitoids (∼295 Ma) variably deformed during Alpine (∼30Ma) amphibolite-facies metamorphism. Episyenites occur as local alteration haloes (as wide as a few meters) surrounding steeply dipping, strike-slip faults, with offsets