Experimental impacts into chondritic targets, part I: Disruption of an L6 chondrite by multiple impacts

Abstract

A fragment of an L6 chondrite (Allan Hills [ALH] 85017,13) with an initial mass (M0) of 464.1 g was the target in a series of experimental impacts in which the largest remaining fragment (MR) after each shot was impacted by a 3.18 mm ceramic sphere at a nominal speed of 2 km s^(-1). This continued until the mass of the largest remaining piece was less than half the mass of the target presented to that shot (MS). Two chunks of Bushveldt gabbro with similar initial masses were also impacted under the same conditions until MR was less than half M0. The two gabbro targets required a total of 1.51 x  1^07 and 1.75 x 10^7 erg g^(-1) to attain 0.27 and 0.33 MR/M0, respectively; the chondrite, however, was considerably tougher, reaching 0.40 and 0.21 MR/M0 only after receiving 2.37 x 10^7 and 3.10 x 10^7 erg g^(-1), respectively. The combined ejecta and spallation products from the gabbro impacts were coarser than those from the chondrite and in sufficient quantities that the new surface areas exceeded those from the meteorite until the fifth shot in the chondrite series, which was the number of impacts required to disrupt each gabbro target (i.e., MR/M0 ≤ 0.5). Unlike the behavior shown in previous regolith-evolution series, neither gabbro target produced an enhancement in the size fraction reflecting the mean size of the crystals composing the rock (about 3 mm), an effect possibly related to the width of the shock pulse. The original chondrite was so fine-grained and fractured, and the variance in its grain-size distribution so large, that effects related to grain size were relegated to the <63 ?m fraction. Impacts into ALH 85017 produced abundant, fine-grained debris, but otherwise the slopes of its size distributions were comparable to those from other experiments involving natural and fabricated terrestrial targets. The characteristic slopes of the chondrites size distributions, however, were notably more constant over the entire nine-impact series than those from any of the terrestrial targets, a testament to the control over comminution apparently exerted by pre-existing fractures and other, microscopic damage in the meteorite. The enhancement in the finer fraction of debris from ALH 85017 indicates that ordinary chondrites in solar orbit would be very efficient contributors to the cosmic-dust complex. At the same time, the greater resistance to disruption displayed by ordinary chondrites relative to that exhibited by igneous rocks indicates that a selection effect could be operative between the annealed, ordinary-chondritic breccias and relatively weaker, differentiated meteorites. Preferential survival from their time in the regoliths of their parent bodies through their transit to Earth and passage through the atmosphere suggests that meteorite collections could be biased in favor of the ordinary chondrites.