Elemental Oxides Analysis
A major
and minor elemental oxides analysis was performed on material from the
Frass
Meteorite. Two samples had only minor oxides analyzed. One sample
was all gray rock, one sample was a mixture of the red and gray rock. The
gray rock is on top in the picture to the left, while the red rock is on the
bottom of the same picture. To date, there has been no chemistry done on
just the red rock alone, because there is so little of the material.
One sample was just the finest sands minus all apparent
volcanic material. This
sample was labeled Sand 1. You can see some of this dust "stuck" to the
walls of the meteorite in the picture to the right. It is butterscotch
colored and is very fine, much like talcum powder.
The different sands were separated mechanically by shaking the Petri dish until the sands separated according to the size of the particles. When I looked at this sample, all I could see was silicon particles and no lava type particles. The elemental oxides show this sample to be about 90% silicon and would probably represent the "dust" of Mars.
These last
two samples were chosen to most clearly represent the Martian surface and were
the samples most clearly "Martian" in their chemical makeup. The picture
on the left would be representative of the sample marked Sand 2, while the
sample below would be representative of the sample marked Sand 3. I was
undertaking these tests while the Pathfinder was on Mars
and making its own measurements. I plotted the five values from the Frass
Meteorite against several values returned from Mars via Pathfinder and I plotted
a number of values derived from nearby terrestrial volcanoes. It has been
argued that the values returned by Pathfinder were inaccurate since the inventor
of the instrument apparently never calibrated the instrument before launch,
thinking that it didn't have a chance of working anyway. I've spent much
time thinking about these measurements and how they might compare to those made
by the Frass Meteorite. I think these comparisons are valid, although not
conclusive.
Both samples were submitted for major and minor elemental oxides analysis. Included in both samples were any organic materials that may have been present in the sand. See the section on the life of Mars for more information.
One of the most interesting aspects of the analysis of the major elemental oxides, is the linear nature of every graph. No matter which oxides are compared, there is always a linear nature between all five plots. This seems to indicate that the meteorite and all of its contents were made from the same source material, or more directly, from the same volcano.
The following samples were the first tested:
| Sample | Code | Al2O3 | CaO | Cr2O3 | Fe2O3 | K2O | MgO | MnO | Na2O |
| Mixed Lava | 248 | 15.48 | 8.65 | 0.03 | 11.10 | 2.40 | 4.38 | 0.13 | 3.81 |
| Sand 1 | 248 | 8.40 | 3.55 | 0.01 | 3.89 | 2.27 | 1.27 | 0.05 | 1.66 |
| P2O5 | SiO2 | TiO2 | LOI | Total |
| 1.00 | 48.54 | 1.89 | 1.57 | 98.98 |
| 0.27 | 73.26 | 0.66 | 4.08 | 99.37 |
In the graphs below, the five samples mentioned above are plotted along with several samples obtained by Pathfinder. The majority of the plots represent chemistry from "local" volcanoes sited within 300 miles of the landing site of the Frass Meteorite.
Pictures of Elemental Analysis as provided by Chemex Labs.
Graphs
