{"id":42670,"date":"2026-10-22T17:52:49","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T15:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/?p=42670"},"modified":"2026-10-22T17:52:51","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T15:52:51","slug":"xenoliths-in-meteorites-insights-into-the-dynamics-of-material-exchange-between-asteroids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/?p=42670","title":{"rendered":"Xenoliths in meteorites: Insights into the dynamics of material exchange between asteroidsOPEN ACCESS<\/span> "},"content":{"rendered":"\n

J. Gattacceca, B. Devouard, L. Bonal, Y. Marrocchi, A. Greshake, R. Tart\u00e8se, M. Gounelle, D. AuYang, C. Sonzogni, M. Hutson, A. Irving, C. Agee, T. Shisseh, A. Love, V. Vidal, D. Borschneck, S. A. Eckley, A. Morbidelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MAPS, Version of Record online: 21 October 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LINK (OPEN ACCESS)<\/strong><\/a>
PDF (OPEN ACCESS)<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A minor fraction of meteorites contains xenoliths, that is, clasts that were formed on a different parent body than that of the host lithology. The occurrence of xenoliths is direct evidence for the exchange of material between asteroids, including exchanges between asteroids from the carbonaceous (CC) and non-carbonaceous (NC) reservoirs. Overall xenolith population statistics may therefore inform us about the dynamical mixing of these two asteroid reservoirs. Xenoliths are also intrinsically interesting because they may sample parent bodies that are not represented in the meteorite collection. In this work, we conducted a critical and exhaustive review of xenoliths described in the literature and performed a new large-scale search for macroscopic lithic xenoliths. We identify 89 xenolith-bearing meteorites in the literature, and report 18 new ones. We expand the diversity of known host\/xenolith pairs with occurrence that had not been reported before: a CM clast in a L chondrite, a CO3 clast in a eucrite, a pallasite and H clasts in howardites, and two CO-CM breccias. Based on our observations, we reinterpret a number of previously described xenoliths. In particular, many \u201cCI-like\u201d xenoliths should rather be classified as ungrouped C1 or C2 chondrite xenoliths. At least a third of xenoliths do not belong to the known meteorite groups, suggesting that they represent a flux of meteoroids different from the present-day one that is dominated by the products of recent (~<50\u2009Ma) collisions. Although xenoliths are present in only 0.14% of meteorites, the statistics of the total data set of 107 xenolith-bearing meteorites can be discussed in relation with the asteroid population. Xenoliths are more abundant in the regolith breccias of large asteroids, in agreement with their ability to maintain an old and mature regolith. Chondritic xenoliths represent 95% of xenolith occurrence, in line with a higher number of chondritic asteroids with respect to achondritic ones. Xenoliths from the CC and NC reservoirs are found in host meteorites from both reservoirs, and a majority was implanted at low collisional speed (below about 2\u2009km s\u22121). The low proportion of CC meteorites with NC xenoliths can be related to the fact that the present-day outer asteroid belt that hosts the majority of CC asteroids is depleted in NC asteroids. The broad agreement between the xenolith population and the present-day architecture of the asteroid belt, as well as the low collisional speed between CC and NC materials suggest that the implantation of most xenoliths occurred after the main scattering event of the asteroids triggered by the formation of Jupiter a few Myr after the formation of the solar system. Conversely, CV, CK, and CO chondrites contain only xenoliths from a meteorite group of their own meteorite clan suggesting that these intra-clan xenoliths were implanted while their parent bodies were still orbiting in a narrow range of heliocentric distance, that is, before the main scattering event of the asteroids triggered by the formation of Jupiter. Eventually, a few xenoliths were incorporated in asteroids that were still accreting. Therefore, xenolith implantation seems to have been a universal and protracted phenomenon, active for most of solar system history.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

J. Gattacceca, B. Devouard, L. Bonal, Y. Marrocchi, A. Greshake, R. Tart\u00e8se, M. Gounelle, D. AuYang, C. Sonzogni, M. Hutson, A. Irving, C. Agee, T. Shisseh, A. Love, V. Vidal, D. Borschneck, S. A. Eckley,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,3249],"tags":[2250,3273,4006,1807,475,3252],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42670"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42671,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42670\/revisions\/42671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karmaka.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}