Chondrite - Composition

Composition

Because chondrites accumulated from material that formed very early in the history of the solar system, and because chondritic asteroids did not melt, they have very primitive compositions. "Primitive," in this sense, means that the abundances of most chemical elements do not differ greatly from those that are measured by spectroscopic methods in the photosphere of the sun, which in turn should be well-representative of the entire solar system (note: to make such a comparison between a gaseous object like the sun and a rock like a chondrite, scientists choose one rock-forming element, such as silicon, to use as a reference point, and then compare ratios. Thus, the atomic ratio of Mg/Si measured in the sun (1.07) is identical to that measured in CI chondrites).

Although all chondrite compositions can be considered primitive, there is variation among the different groups, as discussed above. CI chondrites seem to be nearly identical in composition to the sun for all but the gas-forming elements (e.g., hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and noble gases). Other chondrite groups deviate from the solar composition (i.e., they are fractionated) in highly systematic ways:

• At some point during the formation of many chondrites, particles of metal became partially separated from particles of silicate minerals. As a result, chondrites coming from asteroids that did not accrete with their full complement of metal (e.g., L, LL, and EL chondrites) are depleted in all siderophile elements, whereas those that accreted too much metal (e.g., CH, CB, and EH chondrites) are enriched in these elements compared to the sun.
• In a similar manner, although the exact process is not very well understood, highly refractory elements like Ca and Al became separated from less refractory elements like Mg and Si, and were not uniformly sampled by each asteroid. The parent bodies of many groups of carbonaceous chondrites over-sampled grains rich in refractory elements, whereas those of ordinary and enstatite chondrites were deficient in them.
• No chondrites except the CI group formed with a full, solar complement of volatile elements. In general, the level of depletion corresponds to the degree of volatility, where the most volatile elements are most depleted.