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Science 5 May 2000:
Vol. 288. no. 5467, pp. 839 - 841
DOI: 10.1126/science.288.5467.839
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Reports

Large-Scale Thermal Events in the Solar Nebula: Evidence from Fe,Ni Metal Grains in Primitive Meteorites

Anders Meibom, 1*dagger Steven J. Desch, 2 Alexander N. Krot, 1 Jeffrey N. Cuzzi, 2 Michael I. Petaev, 3 Lionel Wilson, 4 Klaus Keil 15

Chemical zoning patterns in some iron, nickel metal grains from CH carbonaceous chondrites imply formation at temperatures from 1370 to 1270 kelvin by condensation from a solar nebular gas cooling at a rate of ~0.2 kelvin per hour. This cooling rate requires a large-scale thermal event in the nebula, in contrast to the localized, transient heating events inferred for chondrule formation. In our model, mass accretion through the protoplanetary disk caused large-scale evaporation of precursor dust near its midplane inside of a few astronomical units. Gas convectively moved from the midplane to cooler regions above it, and the metal grains condensed in these parcels of rising gas.

1 Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.
2 NASA Ames Research Center, Mail Stop 245-3, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
3 Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Mail Stop 52, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
4 Environmental Science Department, Institute of Environmental and Natural Sciences, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK.
5 Hawai'i Center for Volcanology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: meibom{at}pangea.stanford.edu

dagger    Present address: Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, Building 320, Lomita Mall, Stanford, CA 94305-2115, USA.

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