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Science 22 November 1985:
Vol. 230. no. 4728, pp. 935 - 937
DOI: 10.1126/science.230.4728.935
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Articles

A Striking Nitrogen Isotope Anomaly in the Bencubbin and Weatherford Meteorites

CAROL A. PROMBO 1 and ROBERT N. CLAYTON 2

1 Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637
2 Enrico Fermi Institute and Departments of Chemistry and the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago

The stony-iron meteorites Bencubbin and Weatherford contain nitrogen with a ratio of nitrogen-15 to nitrogen-14 larger than normal by as much as a factor of 2. The excess nitrogen-15 may be due either to a nucleosynthetic origin or to extreme isotopic fractionation. In the former case, it may reflect failure to homogenize nitrogen-15 produced in nova explosions. In the latter case, it may reflect chemical processing at temperatures below 40 K in a presolar molecular cloud.

Submitted on July 12, 1985
Accepted on September 23, 1985


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Oxygen Isotopes in the Early Solar System -- A Historical Perspective.
R. N. Clayton (2008)
Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry 68, 5-14
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
What Has Caused the Secular Increase in Solar Nitrogen-15?.
J. F. Kerridge and J. F. KERRIDGE (1989)
Science 245, 480-486
   Abstract »    PDF »


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