[meteorite-list] The Origin of Chondrules and Chondrites - Part 3 of 3

From: bernd.pauli_at_paulinet.de <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat Mar 4 13:25:03 2006
Message-ID: <DIIE.0000002700004546_at_paulinet.de>

Book Review: MAPS 40-4, 2005 April, pp. 655-656

The origin of chondrules and chondrites, by Derek Sears.
Cambridge University Press, 2004, 209 pp.
$110.00, hardcover (ISBN 0-521-83603-4).

To test impact and nebular models for the origin of chondrules and relate the spectral properties
of asteroid surfaces to those of meteorites, Sears argues that we must bring back asteroid samples
for study in laboratories. The only way to disentangle what happened in the nebula from what happened
on asteroids is to visit actual outcrops on asteroids, do geological fieldwork, and return samples. The
Japanese space agency's Hayabusa spacecraft will attempt these tasks in the fall of 2005 when it visits
the S-type asteroid, Itokawa.
To condense chondrite research into a relatively small book that focuses on chondrule origins and metal-
silicate fractionation, Sears was forced to omit detailed accounts of several important topics about
chondrites. For example, if you want an up-to-date, detailed review of presolar grains, Ca-Al-rich
inclusions, organic matter, or early solar system chronology, you should read the chapters by Zinner,
MacPherson, Gilmour, and McKeegan and Davis in the Treatise on Geochemistry, (2003). Researchers
who need detailed accounts of the minerals present in chondritic components and their compositions
should go to the extraordinary 398 page compendium by Brearley and Jones published by the Mineralogical
Society of America in 1998, which includes about 1000 references. But the only book that will give you
a concise account of the properties and proposed origins of chondrules and chondrites is this monograph.
You may not be convinced that Sears has identified the correct model for chondrule formation, but you will
learn much about chondrules and chondrites.

E.R.D. Scott
Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology
University of Hawai'i at Manoa
Honolulu, Hawai'l, 96822, USA


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