Publication Date:
2010-04-17
Description:
Martian meteorite ALH84001 (ALH) is the oldest known igneous rock from Mars and has been used to constrain its early history. Lutetium-hafnium (Lu-Hf) isotope data for ALH indicate an igneous age of 4.091 +/- 0.030 billion years, nearly coeval with an interval of heavy bombardment and cessation of the martian core dynamo and magnetic field. The calculated Lu/Hf and Sm/Nd (samarium/neodymium) ratios of the ALH parental magma source indicate that it must have undergone extensive igneous processing associated with the crystallization of a deep magma ocean. This same mantle source region also produced the shergottite magmas (dated 150 to 570 million years ago), possibly indicating uniform igneous processes in Mars for nearly 4 billion years.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Lapen, T J -- Righter, M -- Brandon, A D -- Debaille, V -- Beard, B L -- Shafer, J T -- Peslier, A H -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2010 Apr 16;328(5976):347-51. doi: 10.1126/science.1185395.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA. tjlapen@uh.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20395507" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Computer Science
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Medicine
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Natural Sciences in General
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Physics
