Meteorites and Cosmic Mineralogy

A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (29 February 2016) | Viewed by 6284

Special Issue Editors

Geology Department, Faculty of Sciences Ain Chock, Hassan II University of Casablanca, Km 8, Route d’El Jadida, BP 5366 Maarif 20190 Casablanca, Morocco
Interests: meteorites; impact cratering; planetary geology; Martian meteorites; high-pressure mineralogy in meteorites; petrography; mineralogy; geochemistry; geoheritage
Instituto de Geociencias, IGEO (CSIC-UCM), C/ Del Doctor Severo Ochoa 7, Edificio Entrepabellones 7 y 8, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Interests: planetary geosciences; meteorites; geoeducation; geoethics; mineralogy; geochemistry; sustainability; conceptual changes; astrobiology; future earth
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the last few decades, planetary and space exploration and scientific and technological developments have revitalized the study of Meteorites and Cosmic Mineralogy. This has also led to developing new conceptual models that have sound astromineralogical and cosmochemical basis. These studies (including those related to the high-pressure mineral assemblages in extraterrestrial material and associations related to asteroids impacts) are allowing having a better knowledge about the origin and evolution of our solar system, origin of water and life on Earth, asteroidal and planetary differentiation, the interpretation of planetary paleoenvironments, and also the identification of markers of habitability for the search for extraterrestrial life. Space material shows a great compositional variation. The new advances on some analytical techniques have also made possible to perform challenging physical-chemical characterizations of this material, establishing new ideas and lines of research from a multidisciplinary approach.

This Special Issue will focus on recent advances in Meteorites and Cosmic Mineralogy, including, but not limited to, the mineralogy of asteroids, moons, planets and dwarf planets, comets, IDPs and cosmic particles, methodology and instrumentation linked to these subjects, meteoritics, planetary geology, impact cratering, high pressure minerals, cosmochemistry, astrophysical studies, astrobiology, as well as societal, cultural, and museological aspects related to meteorites as a geoheritage. We, therefore, invite the authors to submit their manuscripts for this new Special Issue in all these areas, subjects, and topics.

Prof. Dr. Jesús Martínez-Frías
Prof. Dr. Hasnaa Chennaoui
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Minerals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • meteorites
  • extraterrestrial minerals
  • high pressure minerals
  • planetary differentiation
  • IDPs
  • cosmic particles
  • asteroids
  • moons
  • planets
  • comets
  • impacts
  • impact cratering
  • water
  • carbonaceous matter
  • life

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

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Article
Structural Characterization of Iron Meteorites through Neutron Tomography
by Stefano Caporali, Francesco Grazzi, Filomena Salvemini, Ulf Garbe, Steven Peetermans and Giovanni Pratesi
Minerals 2016, 6(1), 14; https://doi.org/10.3390/min6010014 - 19 Feb 2016
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 5955
Abstract
In this communication, we demonstrate the use of neutron tomography for the structural characterization of iron meteorites. These materials prevalently consist of metallic iron with variable nickel content. Their study and classification is traditionally based on chemical and structural analysis. The latter requires [...] Read more.
In this communication, we demonstrate the use of neutron tomography for the structural characterization of iron meteorites. These materials prevalently consist of metallic iron with variable nickel content. Their study and classification is traditionally based on chemical and structural analysis. The latter requires cutting, polishing and chemical etching of large slabs of the sample in order to determine the average width of the largest kamacite lamellae. Although this approach is useful to infer the genetical history of these meteorites, it is not applicable to small or precious samples. On the base of different attenuation coefficient of cold neutrons for nickel and iron, neutron tomography allows the reconstruction of the Ni-rich (taenite) and Ni-poor (kamacite) metallic phases. Therefore, the measure of the average width of the largest kamacite lamellae could be determined in a non-destructive way. Furthermore, the size, shape, and spatial correlation between kamacite and taenite crystals were obtained more efficiently and accurately than via metallographic investigation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Meteorites and Cosmic Mineralogy)
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