Multiple impact events recorded in the NWA 7298 H chondrite breccia and the dynamical evolution of an ordinary chondrite asteroid

Abstract

The major geologic process that has shaped the asteroids and led to development of their regoliths is impact. Petrofabrics in ordinary chondrites are undoubtedly the result of impact events on their asteroidal parent bodies and the foliation present in a chondrite serves as an enduring record of the magnitude of the most intense compacting event experienced by the material. An overwhelming majority of chondrites have an internally consistent petrofabric contained within the spatial dimensions of the entire rock, including across clasts or different petrographic domains. This indicates that the magnitude of the most recent impact to have affected the assembled chondrite was significant enough to impart a foliation across all lithologies. Information of any previous impacts is largely lost because of the consistent, realigned foliations. We present X-ray microtomography derived 3D petrofabric intensity and orientation data for three lithologies in the NWA 7298 breccia. The internally inconsistent petrofabrics among differing lithologies indicate that the magnitude of the final impact event was smaller than previous ones. This latter case preserves fabric information recorded during previous impacts and allows a more complete interpretation of the impact history of a local region of the asteroidal parent. We used our data to infer the sequence and intensity of distinct impact events affecting the NWA 7298 parent asteroid. We suggest a near-surface impact debris zone on the H chondrite parent asteroid as an origin for NWA 7298. These observations yield new opportunities for investigating and interpreting the dynamic collisional evolution of asteroids.