Implications of iodine-xenon studies for the timing and location of secondary alteration

Abstract

Iodine-xenon ages (based on 15.7 Ma 129I) of meteoritic samples are highly susceptible to secondary alteration processes, so they have the potential to determine both the timing, and in some cases the location, of those secondary processes. Iodine-xenon studies can determine the location in two cases. First, if the length of time required is greater than the lifetime of the nebula, then the process must have occurred on a parent body. Ages from sodalite in Allende, dark inclusions in Efremovka (CV3), and some samples from CM chondrites all suggest durations of several million years, in some cases marginally longer than the predicted duration of the nebula. Second, in some cases the evolution of the 129Xe/132Xe ratio can be used to determine the I/Xe elemental ratio of the reservoir in which the evolution occurred. For chondrules from the unequilibrated ordinary chondrites Chainpur and Tieschitz, the isotopic evolution is quantitatively consistent with evolution in a chondritic (parent body), rather than nebular, reservoir.