The Lamont Earth Science Colloquium presents:
Rethinking the origin of volatiles in the inner solar system: Insights from iron meteorites
with Dr. Damanveer Grewal, Assistant Professor, Yale University.
The origin of volatiles such as water, carbon, and nitrogen in Earth and other rocky planets remains a fundamental question in planetary science. Much of our current understanding comes from studies of chondrites, which preserve the chemistry of primordial solar system materials. However, chondrites sample relatively late-accreting planetesimals (~2–4 Ma after the formation of the solar system) and may not be faithful analogues of the earliest building blocks in the inner solar system, which began forming almost at the onset of solar system formation. Astrophysical models suggest that temperatures in the inner solar system were too high for volatiles to condense, implying that the first planetesimals should have accreted almost volatile-free materials. In this talk, I introduce a new perspective by examining an often-overlooked class of meteorites – iron meteorites, which sample the metallic cores of first-generation planetesimals. I will show that iron meteorites provide clear evidence that the earliest inner solar system planetesimals accreted from volatile-bearing material. This result challenges the prevailing paradigm of the origin of volatiles in the inner solar system and carries broad implications for the thermal structure of the protoplanetary disk, the timing and location of planetesimal formation, and ultimately the conditions that enabled habitable planets to emerge.
Host: Dr. Yves Moussallam, Associate Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Geochemistry at LDEO.
The Earth Science Colloquium Series, sponsored by Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia University Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (DEES), provides a lively forum for discussing a wide variety of topics within the Earth sciences and related fields. Colloquia are attended by the full range of scientific and technical staff at LDEO. Colloquium attendance is required of all pre-orals DEES graduate students. The Colloquium Series supports the Lamont Seminar Diversity Initiative.
