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

• Published in: Meteoritics & Planetary Science
• Main Authors: van Ginneken M, Suavet C, Cordier C, FOLCO, LUIGI, Rochette P, Sonzogni C, PERCHIAZZI, NATALE
• Other Authors: van Ginneken, M, Suavet, C, Cordier, C, Folco, Luigi, Rochette, P, Sonzogni, C, Perchiazzi, Natale
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: Antarctic; Dome Fuji; The Antarctic; Transantarctic Mountains; Victoria Land; Antarc*; ice core; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11568/155832; https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.12011

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 108kg (or larger) cosmic body in the Antarctic region about 480kyr 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.