[meteorite-list] Frequency of Shergottites

From: Bernd Pauli HD <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:54:06 2004
Message-ID: <3C6FDA69.5FCFC4D0_at_lehrer1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>

Jamie wrote:

> I am just curious. Does anyone know why it seems
> Shergottites are more common than Nakhlites or
> Chassignites?

Randy responded:

> Nakhlites are much more fragile than Shergottites.
> They may tend to weather away faster.


Hi Jamie, Randy, and List,

Another possibility would be that our collections are biased. We all
know that carbonaceous chondrites are relatively rare in our collections
when compared to ordinary chondrites, but, out there in the asteroid
belt, it is vice versa: parent bodies of ordinary chondritic material
are less abundant than parent bodies of carbonaceous material - so
shergottite-like material may vastly outnumber the other SNC-types here
on Earth but on Mars, there is perhaps a much more equal distribution of
different SNC materials unless we share H.Y. McSween's perspective that
I quoted in an earlier mail that shergottite-like basalts may be common
volcanic rocks on Mars.


Best regs,

Bernd
Received on Sun 17 Feb 2002 11:29:29 AM PST