Vincent Mugica, Masters Candidate
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Vincent Mugica, Masters Candidate
Hypervelocity impacts are the most fundamental process in Geology. Throughout the “deep time” of solar system history impacts have played a role in the formation of planets, modification of the surfaces of planetary bodies, and terrestrial mass extinctions. The goal of this Master's thesis project is to reconstruct the impact conditions via a battery of novel electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) methods and shock thermobarometry of a suite of similarly shocked L-chondrites. Specifically, this study seeks to (1) assess the syn-deformational temperatures of the L-chondrite sample suite with implications for the timing of impact, (2) determine the nature of micro-deformation within the samples, (3) provide constraints on the geochemical processes operating within shock melt veins during impact and (4) provide shock pressures and temperatures of the meteorite impact events responsible for their formation.
From the project start date to now work on a famous meteorite called Tenham has yielded a new discovery. The new discovery includes a previously unreported anomalous texture within several pyroxene grains within the Tenham shock melt vein that are suggestive of a transformative disequilibrium process that is analogous to disequilibrium textures in terrestrial igneous minerals entrained in different host melts. Our data provides a novel crystallographic perspective that supports geochronologic, isotopic, and impact crater data that puts constraints on the largest impact to have occurred in our solar system the past 3 Ga: the L-Chondrite Parent Body (LCPB) impact event.
At least ~1-2 meteorites still need to be analyzed prior to my graduation date later this year (May 2025).
