Petrogenesis of Miller Range 07273, a new type of anomalous melt breccia: Implications for impact effects on the H chondrite asteroid.

Miller Range 07273 is a chondritic melt breccia that contains clasts of equilibrated ordinary chondrite set in a fine-grained (<5 μm), largely crystalline, igneous matrix. Data indicate that MIL was derived from the H chondrite parent asteroid, although it has an oxygen isotope composition that approaches but falls outside of the established H group. MIL also is distinctive in having low porosity, cone-like shapes for coarse metal grains, unusual internal textures and compositions for coarse metal, a matrix composed chiefly of clinoenstatite and omphacitic pigeonite, and troilite veining most common in coarse olivine and orthopyroxene. These features can be explained by a model involving impact into a porous target that produced brief but intense heating at high pressure, a sudden pressure drop, and a slower drop in temperature. Olivine and orthopyroxene in chondrule clasts were the least melted and the most deformed, whereas matrix and troilite melted completely and crystallized to nearly strain-free minerals. Coarse metal was largely but incompletely liquefied, and matrix silicates formed by the breakdown during melting of albitic feldspar and some olivine to form pyroxene at high pressure (>3 GPa, possibly to ~15-19 GPa) and temperature (>1350 °C, possibly to ≥2000 °C). The higher pressures and temperatures would have involved back-reaction of high-pressure polymorphs to pyroxene and olivine upon cooling. Silicates outside of melt matrix have compositions that were relatively unchanged owing to brief heating duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]