About the Cover
This diagram is a compilation of oxygen isotopic analytical data for meteoritic and lunar samples, collected since about 1973 in the University of Chicago lab of Robert N. Clayton and Toshiko Mayeda.
18O and
17O give the deviations, in parts per 1000 (permil; 0/00), of the ratios 18O/16O and 17O/16O, respectively, in samples relative to Standard Mean Ocean Water (SMOW). The diagram is, in effect, an isotopic map of solar system bodies. All terrestrial and lunar samples plot on the so-called terrestrial fractionation line (TF), which has a slope of ~1/2, along which the variation can be explained by simple mass-dependent, physicochemical processes such as evaporation, condensation, and igneous crystallization. Meteoritic samples mostly do not plot on this line, and either plot on separate slope-1/2 lines parallel to but displaced from TF, or else along linear arrays having slopes closer to 1. The Carbonaceous Chondrite Anhydrous Mineral (CCAM) line is the dominant slope-1 array, whose extreme 16O-rich end is defined by calcium-, aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs). The CCAM line requires non-mass-dependent isotopic effects or mixing of an additional 16O-rich component. Some CAIs disperse to the right of the CCAM line owing to melt volatilization that resulted in massdependent isotopic fractionation (e.g., the FUN line).
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Copyright © 2009 by Mineralogical Society of America