Electron petrography of shock-produced veins in the Tenham chondrite

Abstract

Electron microscopy of the minerals in, and adjacent to the black veins of the Tenham meteorite reveals that the minerals have undergone varying degrees of shock. The orthopyroxenes of the bulk of the meteorite have been transformed to clinopyroxenes in areas adjacent to the veins, and to majorite in the black vein itself. The majorite, which occurs in both equant and dendritic habit, is associated with a glassy phase from which it crystallized, and with a microcrystalline clinopyroxene aggregate produced from the majorite upon the release of pressure. The olivines of the meteorite are also deformed, and some have been transformed to the high pressure spinel polymorph. The spinel has subsequently partially inverted to the β-phase polymorph.