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Early oceans on Earth might have contained certain amounts of biomolecules such as amino acids, and they were subjected to meteorite impacts, especially during the late heavy bombardment. We performed shock recovery experiments by using a propellant gun in order to simulate shock reactions among olivine as a representative meteorite component, water and biomolecules in oceans in the process of marine meteorite impacts. In the present study, recovered solid samples were analyzed by using X-ray powder diffraction method, scanning electron microscopy, electron probe microanalysis, and transmission electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry. The analytical results on shocked products in the recovered sample showed (1) morphological changes of olivine to fiber- and bamboo shoot-like crystals, and to pulverized grains; and features of lumpy surfaces affected by hot water, (2) the formation of carbon-rich substances derived from amino acids, and (3) the incorporation of metals from container into samples. According to the present results, fine-grained olivine in meteorites might have morphologically changed and shock-induced chemical reactions might have been enhanced so that amino acids related to the origin of life may have transformed to carbon-rich substances by impacts.

Prebiotic oceans might have contained abundant amino acids, and were subjected to meteorite impacts, especially during the late heavy bombardment. It is so far unknown how meteorite impacts affected amino acids in the early oceans. Impact experiments were performed under the conditions where glycine was synthesized from carbon, ammonia, and water, using aqueous solutions containing (13)C-labeled glycine and alanine. Selected amino acids and amines in samples were analyzed with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC/MS). In particular, the (13)C-labeled reaction products were analyzed to distinguish between run products and contaminants. The results revealed that both amino acids survived partially in the early ocean through meteorite impacts, that part of glycine changed into alanine, and that large amounts of methylamine and ethylamine were formed. Fast decarboxylation was confirmed to occur during such impact processes. Furthermore, the formation of n-butylamine, detected only in the samples recovered from the solutions with additional nitrogen and carbon sources of ammonia and benzene, suggests that chemical reactions to form new biomolecules can proceed through marine impacts. Methylamine and ethylamine from glycine and alanine increased considerably in the presence of hematite rather than olivine under similar impact conditions. These results also suggest that amino acids present in early oceans can contribute further to impact-induced reactions, implying that impact energy plays a potential role in the prebiotic formation of various biomolecules, although the reactions are complicated and depend upon the chemical environments as well.

Antigorite is one kind of hydrous serpentine that is present in meteorites and in the Earth mantle. In order to understand its dynamic behaviors, metastability and decomposition, shock experiments on antigorite have been conducted using a two-stage gas gun, and wave profiles of particle velocities have been measured to obtain the Hugoniot up to ~130 GPa and sound velocity at high pressures. The results show three regions of low-pressure phase below ~43 GPa and its metastable extension above a pressure of ~43 GPa for short durations of shock and high-pressure phase(s) above a pressure of ~43 GPa for long durations of shock. The dynamic behaviors of antigorite depend on not only the pressure but also the compression duration. Metastable extension state indicates that antigorite may survive beyond the stability depending on the shock conditions. Shock temperatures for antigorite are calculated along the Hugoniot. The pressure–density, sound velocity–pressure and shock temperature–pressure plots demonstrate that the decomposition reaction of antigorite into high-pressure phase(s) is accompanied by a volume expansion, sound velocity increase and temperature decrease, relative to the metastable extension phase above ~43 GPa. The decomposition should be sluggish and needs enough reaction time to complete and to overcome the activation energy. As a result of the high metastability of antigorite and possible decomposition assemblages, the hydrous serpentine (antigorite) may play a crucial role for the origin of water during the Earth accretion.

In situ time-resolved measurements of shock wave profiles for anisotropic fluorite crystals with two different crystal orientations were carried out up to a pressure of 34 GPa that is above the transition pressure for the fluorite to cotunnite phase. They indicate that the Hugoniot elastic limit varies with the crystal orientation and final pressure and that high-pressure phase transition from fluorite to a cotunnite-type structure occurs at 13 GPa in 10–20 ns for CaF2 [100]-oriented crystals and at 17 GPa in more than 50 ns for CaF2 [111]-oriented crystals, respectively. These results are in disagreement with those from static compression. The phase transition at static pressures has been known to be very sluggish, but the present results indicate a large sensitivity of kinetics to the relationship between crystallographic orientation and shock direction, supporting a martensitic mechanism for the fluorite to cotunnite phase transition that is enhanced by the effect of shock-induced shear. It is also helpful to explain the observation that the in situ emission spectra for shocked Eu-doped fluorite became weak and had no shift above ~15 GPa.

Changes in the anisotropy of the low-field magnetic susceptibility (AMS) of basaltic andesite were induced by decaying stress waves and subsequently quantified. An initial shock pressure of 5 GPa was generated in a block of the target rock through impacting with a cylindrical projectile. Following the impact, the maximum or minimum principal susceptibility axes of the target were reoriented toward the shock direction at low (0.5–3 GPa) or high (>3 GPa) estimated shock pressures, respectively. Subtraction of the initial AMS demonstrated a parallelism between the induced susceptibility axes and the shock direction. These results suggest a potential application of AMS as an indicator of the propagation directions of stress waves generated in rocks at terrestrial impact structures.

The high stress Us-Up Hugoniot equation of state (EOS) of a zirconium-based bulk metallic glass (BMG, Zr57Nb5Cu15.4Ni12.6Al10) was determined using plate impact experiments on disk-shaped samples of 10-mm diameter and 2-mm thickness. The National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) two-stage light-gas gun was used for the high stress measurements (∼26 to 123 GPa), and the Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) single-stage gas gun was used for the lower stress measurements (∼5 to 26 GPa). The NIMS experiments were instrumented with streak photography and used the inclined mirror (IM) method to simultaneously measure shock velocity and free surface velocity. The GT experiments used polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) stress gages and velocity interferometry (VISAR) to simultaneously measure the shock velocity, free surface velocity, and stress. Results from the streak camera records and PVDF gages + VISAR traces, as well as impedance matching calculations, were used to generate the Us-Up Hugoniot EOS for the BMG over a wide range of stresses. The Us-Up data show evidence of a low pressure phase, a transition to a mixed phase region at ∼26 GPa, followed by transition at ∼67 GPa to a high-pressure phase of bulk modulus of 288 GPa.

High-temperature oxide melt drop solution calorimetry was used to study the energetics of formation of cubic silicon nitride prepared at high pressure. The standard enthalpy of formation of c-Si3N4 is −776.3 ± 9.5 kJ/mol. The calorimetric measurement of Si3N4 in 3Na2O·4MoO3 solvent was validated by comparing the enthalpy of formation for β–Si3N4 with previous work using alkali borate solvent. The enthalpy of transformation from β– to c-Si3N4 is 80.2 ± 9.6 kJ/mol. This value appears consistent with the observed synthesis conditions, which do not represent reversed equilibrium reactions.

A series of recovery experiments was conducted using a propellant single-stage gun on starting materials of both α-SiC and β-SiC. X-ray examination on the recovered samples indicated that obvious polytype transformations among 3C, 6H, and 15R took place. To the α-SiC starting material, 15R tends to increase and 6H tends to decrease, while a small amount of α-SiC form transforms to 3C type, along with increasing the shock temperature and pressure. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the β-SiC polytype is transformed into rhombohedral forms. From results of both types of SiC samples, rhombohedral polytypes seem to be the favored shock modification. The effects of shock pressure and shock temperature and their heterogeneous distribution on these polytype transitions are discussed in detail. Analysis showed that these polytype transitions resulted from the stacking sequence changes of SiC atom layers.

The Earth accretes about 30,000 tons of dust particles per year, with sizes in the range of 20–400 µm (refs 1, 2). Those particles collected at the Earth's surface—termed micrometeorites—are similar in chemistry and mineralogy to hydrated, porous meteorites3,4,5,6,7, but such meteorites comprise only 2.8% of recovered falls8. This large difference in relative abundances has been attributed to ‘filtering’ by the Earth's atmosphere9, that is, the porous meteorites are considered to be so friable that they do not survive the impact with the atmosphere. Here we report shock-recovery experiments on two porous meteorites, one of which is hydrated and the other is anhydrous. The application of shock to the hydrated meteorite reduces it to minute particles and explosive expansion results upon release of the pressure, through a much broader range of pressures than for the anhydrous meteorite. Our results indicate that hydrated asteroids will produce dust particles during collisions at a much higher rate than anhydrous asteroids, which explains the different relative abundances of the hydrated material in micrometeorites and meteorites: the abundances are established before contact with the Earth's atmosphere.

We have successfully developed a method to manufacture spinel-type Si3N4 and also a chemical treatment method to separate the spinel-type phase from the low-pressure phases. Similar methods could be applied for the SiAlON systems. In order to explore high-pressure nitrides and oxynitrides, we extended toward the system Si3N4-AlN-Al2O3- SiO2. According to the results of in situ measurements of the high-pressure behavior up to pressures of 200 GPa, there appears to be post-spinel phase in the system. This is consistent with the results from the first principles calculations. However we could not obtain the post-spinel phase by the shock recovery experiments at present. We also carried out shock recovery experiments on carbon nitrides and related materials. Experimental results showed formation of a new carbon nitride, high stability of melamine up to a shock pressure of 37 GPa, and production of amorphous C-N materials with a highest N/C ration of 1.26 from the reaction between carbon tetrahalide and sodium dicyanoamide. We tried further to extend toward the systems C3N4-Si3N4 and Mg2SiO4-Si3N4, after taking into account the results on shock synthesis of spinel-type nitrides.

New internally consistent interpretations of the phases represented by the high pressure phase shock wave data for an albite-rich rock, Jadeite, and nepheline in the system NaAlSiO_4-SiO_2, are obtained using the results of static high pressure investigations, and the recent discovery of the hollandite phase in a shocked meteorite. We conclude that nepheline transforms directly to the calcium ferrite structure, whereas albite transforms possibly to the hollandite structure. Shock Hugoniots for the other plagioclase and alkali feldspars also indicate that these transform to hollandite structures. The pressure-volume data at high pressure could alternatively represent the compression of an amorphous phase. Moreover, the shock Hugoniot data are expected to reflect the properties of the melt above shock stresses of 60–80 GPa. The third order Birch-Murnaghan equation of state parameters are: K_(os) = 275±38 GPa and K′_(os) = 1.6±1.5 for the calcium ferrite type NaAlSiO_4, K_(os) = 186±33 GPA and K′_(os) = 2.6±1.7 for the albite-rich hollandite, K_(os) = 236±45 GPa and K′_(os) = 2.3±2.0 for the orthoclase-rich hollandite, and K_(os) = 190 to 210 GPa and K′_(os) ≈ 2.2 for the anorthite-rich hollandite.

A hexagonal polymorph of diamond has been synthesized by relatively weak shock loading (in a range of projectile velocity 0.655 to 1.88 km sec−1) with a recovery technique. Four mixtures of copper with spectroscopic graphite, amorphous carbon, glassy carbon and graphite fluoride, with densities of 4.8 to 7.8 g cm−3, were used to control the shock temperature rise and to quench efficiently. Spectroscopic graphite gave the maximum yield of diamond (8%). Chaoite was also observed in the shocked amorphous carbon and glassy carbon. A local temperature rise during shock was inferred from the temperature of some spherical particles, indicative of superheating of the particles to near or above the melting point.

Extrapolation and extension of phase equilibria in the model system KAlSiO4-Mg2SiO4-SiO2-H2O suggests that at depths greater than 100 km (deeper than amphibole stability), hybridism between cool hydrous siliceous magma, rising from subducted oceanic crust, and the hotter overlying mantle peridotite produces a series of discrete masses composed largely of phlogopite, orthopyroxene, and clinopyroxene (enriched in Jadeite). Quartz (or coesite) may occur with phlogopite in the lowest part of the masses. The heterogeneous layer thus produced above the subducted oceanic crust provides: (1) aqueous fluids expelled during hybridization and solidification, which rise to generate in overlying mantle (given suitable thermal structure) H2O-undersaturated basic magma, which is the parent of the calc-alkalic rock series erupted at the volcanic front; (2) masses of phlogopite-pyroxenites which melt when they cross a deeper, high-temperature solidus, yielding the parents of alkalic magmas erupted behind the volcanic front; and (3) blocks of phlogopite-pyroxenites which may rise diapirically for long-term residence in continental lithosphere, and later contribute to the potassium (and geochemically-related elements) involved in some of the continental magmatism with geochemistry ascribed to mantle metasomatism.

The system KAlSiO4-Mg2SiO4-SiO2-H2O includes model representatives of (1) hydrous siliceous magma from subducted oceanic crust — the eutectic liquid in KAlSi3O8-SiO2-H2O, and (2) the overlying mantle peridotite — the assemblage forsterite+enstatite (Fo+En). In a series of partly schematic isobaric isothermal sections, the products of hybridization between the model materials at pressures between 20 and 30 kbar have been determined. The liquid dissolves peridotite components with little change in composition. Hybridization is not a simple mixing process, because of the incongruent melting of peridotitic assemblages with phlogopite (Ph). Hybridization causes solidification of the liquid, with products a sequence of three mineral assemblages: Ph, Ph+quartz (Qz), and Ph+En. The products represent an absolute geochemical separation and local concentration of all potassium from the liquid. Hybridization is accompanied by H2O-saturation of melts, and evolution of aqueous fluid. Although there are significant differences between the melt composition and that of the magma rising from subducted oceanic slab, and between Fo+En and the mantle rock, extrapolation of the results suggests that the conclusions can probably be extended to mantle conditions with sodium in the melt, and jadeitic clinopyroxene included in the hybrid products.

The decomposition of organic compounds under high pressure and temperature conditions may produce diamond as well as graphite [1, 2]. The formation of diamond from non-elemental carbonaceous materials such as carbon monofluoride [3] and n-heptadecane [4] has been reported in dynamic methods and from organic compounds under static high pressure conditions [1]. The dynamic formation of diamond includes various processes such as nucleation and growth via solid-liquid-solid or solid-liquid-vapoursolid as well as martensitic and reconstructive transformations via solid-solid. In the case of hydrocarbons, the melting points are relatively low and the formation of radicals is substantial at shock pressures below 10 GPa [5, 6]. The observed opacity increases of organic liquids near 10 GPa [7] were interpreted to be the formation of solid carbon particles during shock compression. This letter reports results on the dynamic decomposition of adamantane (tricyclo[3.3.l.13'V]decane) of which the molecule possesses a carbon structure similar to diamond. In the crystal, the molecules lie at the corners and the face centres of a cubic unit cell to give a closely packed arrangement with a density of 1.08gcm -3. The melting point of adamantane is 270 ° C in a sealed platinum tube. According to pyrolysis experiments on adamantane at 15 GPa and 2000 ° C [1], diamond was the only crystalline phase. Setaka [8] made an attempt to synthesize diamond from adamantane, but failed to recover samples after shock treatments. Less than 0.5% of amorphous carbon was obtained in a large amount of unchanged adamantane up to a shock pressure of 20 GPa [9]. Experimental shock results on various organic materials have been summarized and adamantane is described as unchanged or decomposed at 18 to 20GPa [10]. The adamantane employed (Wako Chemical Co.) had a purity more than 99% and was mixed in an agate

Transformation directe de BN graphitique en BN cubique, sans melange avec des metaux, par chauffage initial de l'echantillon et compression par choc de relativement longue duree afin d'accroitre la vitesse de diffusion