Metallographic cooling rates and origin of IVA iron meteorites

Abstract

We have determined the metallographic cooling rates for 13 IVA irons using the most recent and most accurate metallographic cooling rate model. Group IVA irons have cooling rates that vary from 6600°C/Myr at the low-Ni end of the group to 100°C/Myr at the high-Ni end of the group. This large cooling rate range is totally incompatible with cooling in a mantled core which should have a uniform cooling rate. Thermal and fractional crystallization models have been used to describe the cooling and solidification of the IVA asteroid. The thermal model indicates that a metallic body of 150±50km in radius with less than 1km of silicate on the outside of the body has a range of cooling rates that match the metallographic cooling rates in IVA irons in the temperature range 700–400°C where the Widmanstätten pattern formed. The fractional crystallization model for Ni with initial S contents between 3 and 9wt% is consistent with the measured variation of cooling rate with bulk Ni and the thermal model. New models for impacts in the early solar system and the evolution of the primordial asteroid belt allow us to propose that the IVA irons crystallized and cooled in a metallic body that was derived from a differentiated protoplanet during a grazing impact. Other large magmatic iron groups, IIAB, IIIAB, and IVB, also show significant cooling rate ranges and are very likely to share a similar history.