Based on a report submitted to the Endowment Committee by: Dr. Laura Noel García, ICATE (CONICET-UNSJ), San Juan, Argentina
This work was supported by a Meteoritical Society Research Grant. Visit the Grants webpage for more information about the program and see these previous news stories for information about other funded Meteoritical Society Endowment Grant efforts.
Project Title: Cliftonite formation in IAB iron meteorites as a means to understanding the genesis of non-magmatic meteorites
Brief Summary: Carbon in meteorites provides insight into the processes that took place billions of years ago in our Solar System. In this regard, carbon formations in Campo del Cielo named cliftonites may give some clues about the formation of non-magmatic iron meteorites, which is still under debate. To this aim, advanced characterization techniques (particularly EBSD, TKD, and APT) were performed at the GPM's laboratory (URN-INSA Rouen-CNRS, France) on Campo del Cielo samples from the international meteorite repository (CONICET-UNSJ, Argentina). EBSD and TKD were successful, while APT presented some difficulties that are expected to be overcome shortly to get conclusive results.