Fumarolic-like activity on carbonaceous chondrite parent body

Description

Comparative planetology studies are key for understanding the main processes driving planetary formation and evolution. None have been yet applied to pristine asteroids formed in the solar protoplanetary disk, mainly because of their comminution during their 4.5-billion-year collisional lifetime. From remarkable textural, mineralogical, chemical, and thermodynamic similarities, we show that the high-temperature Kudryavy volcano fumarolic environment from Kurile Islands is a likely proxy of the Fe-alkali-halogen metasomatism on the CV and CO carbonaceous chondrite parent bodies. CaFe rich and Na-Al-Cl-rich secondary silicates in CV and CO chondrites are, thus, inferred to be fumarolic-like incrustations that precipitate from hot and reduced hydrothermal vapors after interactions with the wallrocks during buoyancy-driven Darcy flow percolation. These vapors may originate from the progressive heating and devolatilization of a chondritic protolith on their parent body or are remnant of the cooling of residual local nebular gases at the time of their primary planetesimal accretion.

Abstract

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