[meteorite-list] Mercury Meteorites - the short list

From: Michael Murray <mikebevmurray_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 7 Aug 2011 21:18:16 -0600
Message-ID: <0E8AEB89-1174-4A3E-96E8-E477AC6AF8B6_at_gmail.com>

Carl, List,
I make no guarantees that this information is correct but, as I
understand it, the public might have to wait until sometime around
the middle of September of 2012 for the data they are collecting now
from orbit. And, I understand only a few of the pictures taken will
be released between now and then. Wonder why? I'm starting to get a
mushroom complex. Kept in the dark and all that. I ask you, can
mushrooms survive on sulfides?

Mike in CO


On Aug 6, 2011, at 10:32 PM, <cdtucson at cox.net> <cdtucson at cox.net>
wrote:

> Bernd,
>
> The very latest info on Mercuries composition does not even mention
> Fe or FeO. It seems to me if it was there NASA would have already
> mentioned it.
>
> http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/media/NewsConference20110616.html
>
> Ut says;
>
> Mercury's Surface Composition
>
> The X-ray Spectrometer (XRS) ? one of two instruments on MESSENGER
> designed to measure the abundances of many key elements on Mercury ?
> has made several important discoveries since the orbital mission
> began. The magnesium/silicon, aluminum/silicon, and calcium/silicon
> ratios averaged over large areas of the planet's surface show that,
> unlike the surface of the Moon, Mercury's surface is not dominated
> by feldspar-rich rocks.
>
> XRS observations have also revealed substantial amounts of sulfur at
> Mercury's surface, lending support to prior suggestions from ground-
> based telescopic spectral observations that sulfide minerals are
> present. This discovery suggests that the original building blocks
> from which Mercury was assembled may have been less oxidized than
> those that formed the other terrestrial planets, and it has
> potentially important implications for understanding the nature of
> volcanism on Mercury.
>
> So, until the next report it seems all of these older theories might
> be out the window.
>
> Carl
> --
>
>
>
>
>
> "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for
> dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote".
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---- "Bernd V. Pauli" <bernd.pauli at paulinet.de> wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I would like to remind you of Russ Kempton's article in "Meteorite!"
>>
>> Kempton R. (1996) Abee: More Questions Than Answers
>> (METEORITE! Magazine, Pallasite Press, November, 1996):
>>
>> "Curiously, the study of light reflected from Mercury's surface
>> indicates that it is iron-rich and oxygen-poor - characteristics
>> shared with E chondrites".*
>>
>> ... or with some of their achondritic counterparts: the aubrites.
>>
>> * In 1998, our late Richard Norton wrote in RFS:
>>
>> "Their low oxygen content suggests that they formed even closer
>> to the Sun than the H-chondrites, possibly inside Mercury's orbit."
>>
>> NORTON O.R. (1998) Rocks From Space, p. 190, E-Chondrites:
>>
>> But Mercury's mean density of about 5.4 g/cm^3 is a major problem
>> because enstatite chondrites have a density of about 3.4-3.7 g/cm^3.
>>
>> NWA 011 is also mentioned in the "short list" but here's another
>> obstacle:
>>
>> ...its high FeO content, a circumstance which implies a parent body
>> with
>> a small metallic iron core. Mercury is believed to have a large
>> iron core.
>>
>> Niquist et al. (2003) suggest that NWA 011 is of asteroidal rather
>> than
>> Mercurian origin.
>>
>> Love S.G. et al. (1995) think it highly likely that there are
>> Mercurian
>> meteorites in our collections although they should be rare (probably
>> less than 1% of the amount of Martian meteorites in our
>> collections)*.
>>
>> *Love S.G. et al. (1995) Recognizing mercurian
>> meteorites (MAPS 30-3, 1995, pp. 269-278).
>>
>> Best wishes from rainy
>> Southern Germany,
>>
>> Bernd
>>
>>
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Received on Sun 07 Aug 2011 11:18:16 PM PDT