Oxygen isotope composition of meteoritic ablation debris from the Transantarctic Mountains: Constraining the parent body and implications for the impact scenario

Abstract– Microscopic meteoritic ablation spheres recently found on top of the Victoria Land in Transantarctic Mountains, and in the L2 Dome C and DF2691 Dome Fuji ice core layers document a major impact of a 10 8 kg (or larger) cosmic body in the Antarctic region about 480 kyr ago. Although of broa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Meteoritics & Planetary Science
Main Authors: Van GINNEKEN, M., SUAVET, C., CORDIER, C., FOLCO, L., ROCHETTE, P., SONZOGNI, C., PERCHIAZZI, N.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2012
Subjects:
Space and Planetary Science
Geophysics
Antarctic
Dome Fuji
The Antarctic
Transantarctic Mountains
Victoria Land
Antarc*
ice core
Ice Sheet
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/maps.12011
https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fmaps.12011
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/maps.12011
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1111/maps.12011
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Summary:Abstract– Microscopic meteoritic ablation spheres recently found on top of the Victoria Land in Transantarctic Mountains, and in the L2 Dome C and DF2691 Dome Fuji ice core layers document a major impact of a 10 8 kg (or larger) cosmic body in the Antarctic region about 480 kyr ago. Although of broadly chondritic composition, the exact nature of the impactor is unknown, and whether the impactor struck the Antarctic ice sheet or exploded in the atmosphere is a matter of debate. Based on oxygen isotope analyses of ablation spheres from the Transantarctic Mountains by means of IR‐laser fluorination coupled with mass spectrometry, we suggest that they represent the debris of an atmospheric airburst of a primitive asteroid of CV, CO, or CK composition, or a comet with composition similar to the short‐period comet 81P/Wild 2.

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