Precious metal abundances in selected iron meteorites: in-situ AMS measurements of the six platinum-group elements plus gold

Abstract

We have measured the abundances of seven precious metals in NiFe phases (kamacite and plessite) in six iron meteorites. These in-situ analyses, obtained by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) on small polished samples previously characterized by electron microprobe techniques, constrain the distribution of the rare siderophile elements. Within our set of irons, a small but varied suite, concentrations measured by AMS vary by factors of 9–13 for Au, Pd, Pt, Rh and Ru, and by factors of 90 and 250 for Ir and Os respectively.Data are presented for all six platinum group elements (PGE) plus gold. The AMS data suggest a variation in overall precious-metal abundances of a factor of 16 between the most-enriched (Negrillos, ΣPGE + Au = 270 ppm) and the least-enriched (Welland, 16–19 ppm).A clear illustration of the use of AMS data for provenance studies of meteoritic iron is presented for the Welland IIIA iron, an 1888 find from Ontario. Few published data are available for Welland: comparison of a type sample with a smaller piece of unknown metal, with respect to chondrite-normalized PGE patterns, major-element chemistry and textures of the metals, strongly support a suggestion that the latter is a fragment of the same iron.