Center Ph.D. candidate Emilie Dunham is first author on a new paper published in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science, examining two basaltic Martian meteorites found in Antarctica.
The goals of this study were to determine whether meteorites LAR 12095 and LAR 12240 were part of the same fall, as well as how they formed on Mars. In the paper, Petrology and geochemistry of olivine-phyric shergottites LAR 12095 and LAR 12240: Implications for their petrogenetic history on Mars, Dunham and her co-authors show that the two meteorites did, indeed, fall to Earth together, and that they likely began crystallizing in a low oxygen Martian mantle reservoir, underwent closed system crystallization, and were then trapped in the lower Martian crust before fully solidifying.
This new research provides valuable insight into magmatic evolution on Mars.
Dunham, E. T., Balta, J. B., Wadhwa, M., Sharp, T. G., and McSween H. Y. Jr. (2019) Petrology and geochemistry of olivine-phyric shergottites LAR 12095 and LAR 12240: Implications for their petrogenetic history on Mars. Meteoritics & Planetary Science 1-25.
