High Coherence between the Most Refractory Siderophile Elements in Metallic Materials of Meteorites.

Abstract
Re and Os abundances in twelve iron meteorites of various groups and five stony iron meteorites have been determined by isotope dilution employing an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Re and Os abundances were found to have a wide variation covering nearly four orders of magnitude, with a very high correlation coefficient (0.996), showing a slope very slightly gentler than unity. The regression line observed here covers various groups of iron meteorites and stony iron meteorites. This feature can be interpreted to reflect a single“universal”effect such as direct mixing of particles of most refractory metallic elements with gaseous cloud of less refractory matrix elements, predating the formation of meteorites, since Re and Os are predicted theoretically to be the first elements that condense as a solid phase from high temperature solar nebula. The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between the siderophile refractory elements, Re, Os and Ir, together with their bearings on Ni, and to draw some implications for the early sequences of the solar system.

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