Crystallinity of Fe-Ni Sulfides in Carbonaceous Chondrites

The main long-term goal of this research is to understand the physical conditions in the early solar nebula through the detailed characterization of a key class of mineral present in all primitive materials: Fe-Ni sulfides [1&2]. Fe-Ni sulfides can take dozens of structures, depending on the temperature of formation, as well as other physico-chemical factors which are imperfectly understood. Add to this the additional varying factor of Ni content, and we have a potentially sensitive cosmothermometer [3]. Unfortunately, this tool requires exact knowledge of the crystal structure of each grain being considered, and there have been few (none?) studies of the detailed structures of sulfides in chondritic materials. We report here on coordinated compositional and crystallographic investigation of Fe-Ni sulfides in diverse carbonaceous chondrites, initially Acfer 094 (the most primitive CM2 [4]) Tagish Lake (a unique type C2 [5]), a C1 lithology in Kaidun [6], Bali (oxidized CV3 [7]), and Efremovka (reduced CV3 [7]).