Oldest Carbonates in Solar System Contained in Meteorite Shows Evidence of Liquid Water on a Minor Planet

The Flensburg meteorite was dated at Heidelberg University using the ion probe. “Such measurements are extraordinarily difficult and challenging, because the carbonate grains in the rock are extremely small. Further, the isotopic measurements must be very precise, taken within a very tight range of just a few micrometres in diameter – thinner than a human hair,” explains Thomas Ludwig of the Institute of Earth Sciences. The dating method is based on the rates of decay of a naturally occurring isotope – the decay of the short-lived radionuclide 53Mn, which was still active in the early Solar System.

“Using this method, the most precise age determinations thus far indicated that the parent asteroid of the Flensburg meteorite and the carbonates formed only three million years after the formation of the first solid bodies in the Solar System,” explains Prof. Trieloff. The carbonates are therefore more than a million years older than comparable carbonates in other types of carbonaceous chondrites. Besides the age determinations based on the radionuclide 53Mn, the tiny carbonate grains were also examined for their carbon and oxygen isotope composition with the aid of the Heidelberg Ion Probe. The carbonates apparently precipitated out of a relatively hot fluid shortly after the formation and heating of the parent asteroid. “They therefore evidence the earliest known presence of liquid water on a planetary body in the early Solar System,” states the cosmochemist.

In all, 41 researchers from 21 institutions in Germany, France, Switzerland, Hungary, Great Britain, the USA and Australia contributed to the study, which was published in the journal “Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta”. Work at the University of Münster was carried out under the auspices of the Transregional Collaborative Research Centre “Late Accretion Onto Terrestrial Planets” (CRC TRR 170). The research at Heidelberg University was funded by the Klaus Tschira Foundation. Ruperto Carola acquired the ion probe with funding from the German Research Foundation.Contacts and sources:
University of Heidelberg

Publication: The old, unique C1 chondrite Flensburg – Insight into the first processes of aqueous alteration, brecciation, and the diversity of water-bearing parent bodies and lithologies.
Addi Bischoff, Conel M. O’D. Alexander, Jean-Alix Barrat, Christoph Burkhardt, Henner Busemann, Detlev Degering, Tommaso Di Rocco, Meike Fischer, Thomas Fockenberg, Dionysis I. Foustoukos, Jérôme Gattacceca, Jose R.A. Godinho, Dennis Harries, Dieter Heinlein, Jan L. Hellmann, Norbert Hertkorn, Anja Holm, A.J. Timothy Jull, Imene Kerraouch, Ashley J. King, Thorsten Kleine, Dominik Koll, Johannes Lachner, Thomas Ludwig, Silke Merchel, Cornelia A.K. Mertens, Précillia Morino, Wladimir Neumann, Andreas Pack, Markus Patzek, Stefan Pavetich, Maximilian P. Reitze, Miriam Rüfenacht, Georg Rugel, Charlotte Schmidt, Philippe Schmitt-Kopplin, Maria Schönbächler, Mario Trieloff, Anton Wallner, Karl Wimmer, Elias Wölfer. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 2021; 293: 142 DOI: 10.1016/j.gca.2020.10.014