An 57Fe Mössbauer study of the ordinary chondrite meteorite Lynch 001

Nancy N. Elewa, J. M. Cadogan

Hyperfine Interactions (2016)
First Online: 12 December 2016
DOI: 10.1007/s10751-016-1350-1

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Proceedings of the International Conference on Hyperfine Interactions and their Applications (HYPERFINE 2016), Leuven, Belgium, 3-8 July 2016

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“The Lynch 001 meteorite was found in the Nullarbor Plain region of Western Australia in 1977. This meteorite is classified as an ordinary chondrite of the petrologic group L5/6 that has undergone ‘minor to moderate’ terrestrial weathering. Here, we characterize the Fe-bearing phases in this chondrite using 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy carried out over the temperature range 13 K to room temperature (295 K). The paramagnetic doublets of olivine, pyroxene and a superparamagnetic ferric phase dominate the room temperature Mössbauer spectrum. On the basis of the room temperature quadrupole splitting of the olivine component, we estimate its composition to be Fa 30(5). Besides the paramagnetic ferric component, accounting for ∼15 % of the spectral area at room temperature, magnetically ordered ferric phases were also detected. The total relative proportion of the Fe 3+ components allows us to estimate the terrestrial age of Lynch 001 to be 6,500 ± 1,500 yr, consistent with the value of 6,700 ± 1,300 yr determined by 14C dating.”