Publications by authors named "Colin Maden"

Unlabelled: The abundance and types of reef-bearing carbonate platforms reflect the evolution of Devonian climate, with conspicuous microbial-algal reefs in the warm Early and Late Devonian and sponge-coral reefs in the cooler Middle Devonian. A dolomitized Wenlock-Lower Devonian microbial-algal reef-bearing carbonate platform hosts epigenetic copper-cobalt-germanium (Cu-Co-Ge) sulfide mineralization at Ruby Creek-Bornite in the Brooks Range, Alaska. Here, we present rhenium-osmium (Re-Os) radiometric ages and molybdenum and sulfur (δMo = +2.

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The near-Earth carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu is expected to contain volatile chemical species that could provide information on the origin of Earth's volatiles. Samples of Ryugu were retrieved by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. We measured noble gas and nitrogen isotopes in Ryugu samples and found that they are dominated by presolar and primordial components, incorporated during Solar System formation.

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Article Synopsis
  • The Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully returned to Earth from the asteroid 162173 Ryugu on December 6, 2020, and samples were recovered the next day.
  • The extracted gas from the sample container contained helium and neon and had unique extraterrestrial ratios, indicating some contamination from Earth’s atmosphere.
  • This mission marks the first successful return of gas species from a near-Earth asteroid, and discussions are held regarding the fragmentation of Ryugu grains in relation to the gas composition.
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The origin of volatiles in the Moon's interior is debated. Scenarios range from inheritance through a Moon-forming disk or "synestia" to late accretion by meteorites or comets. Noble gases are excellent tracers of volatile origins.

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We measured noble gases in "cluster chondrite clasts" from nine unequilibrated ordinary chondrites (UOCs). For five meteorites, we also present data for so-called "clastic matrix," the impact-brecciated material in which the angular to subrounded cluster chondrite clasts are often embedded. Cluster chondrite clasts are characterized by close-fit texture of deformed and indented chondrules with lower amounts of fine-grained interchondrule matrix than in other UOCs (Metzler 2012).

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Soil sustainability is reflected in a long-term balance between soil production and erosion for a given climate and geology. Here we evaluate soil sustainability in the Andean Altiplano where accelerated erosion has been linked to wetter climate from 4.5 ka and the rise of Neolithic agropastoralism in the millennium that followed.

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We determined interstellar cosmic ray exposure ages of 40 large presolar silicon carbide grains extracted from the Murchison CM2 meteorite. Our ages, based on cosmogenic Ne-21, range from 3.9 ± 1.

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Numerous applications require the precise analysis of U isotope relative enrichment in sample amounts in the subnanogram to picogram range; among those are nuclear forensics, nuclear safeguards, environmental survey, and geosciences. However, conventional thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) yields U combined ionization and transmission efficiencies (i.e.

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We present He and Ne isotopes of individual presolar graphite grains from a low-density separate from Orgueil. Two grain mounts were analyzed with the same techniques but in a different sequence: The first one was measured with NanoSIMS followed by noble gas mass spectrometry, and the second one in reverse order. No grain contained He and only one grain on the second mount contained He.

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