Roaldite in the iron-meteorite São Julião de Moreira
Gert Nolze, Klaus Heide
Geochemistry
In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 18 October 2019
“Roaldite – Fe4N – has been identified in the São Julião de Moreira iron meteorite using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and simultaneously acquired energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS). Mean-periodic-number images derived from raw EBSD patterns confirm this phase by an even higher spatial resolution compared to EDS.
Roaldite appears in the form of systematically and repetitively aligned plates. Despite the locally heavy plastic deformation, it is shown that the origin of the oriented precipitation of roaldite is linked to the orientation of the kamacite matrix. Roaldite can be considered to be precipitated from kamacite using an inverse Kurdjumov-Sachs (K-S) or Nishiyama-Wassermann (N-W) orientation relationship. A more accurate discrimination is impossible due to the accumulated shock deformation, which blurs the local reference orientation of kamacite. The habit plane of roaldite is found to be {112}R, which is most likely parallel to {120}K of kamacite. Some of the roaldite plates contain two orientation variants which repeatedly alternate. Their misorientation angle is about 12°.”
