Exposure to ion and micrometeoroid bombardment in the space environment causes physical and chemical changes in the surface of an airless planetary body. These changes, called space weathering, can strongly influence a surface’s optical characteristics, and hence complicate interpretation of composition from reflectance spectroscopy. Prior work using data from the Dawn spacecraft (Pieters, C.M....

Meteorites are frequently not the pristine record of early solar system processes that we would like them to be. Many unique meteorites, samples that can further our understanding of the environment of the early solar system, are finds, so a knowledge of terrestrial weathering becomes a requirement to accurately interpret their preterrestrial history. This chapter outlines the weathering proces...

The small reservoir of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (pCO2) that modulates climate through the greenhouse effect reflects a delicate balance between large fluxes of sources and sinks. The major long-term source of CO2 is global outgassing from sea-floor spreading, subduction, hotspot activity, and metamorphism; the ultimate sink is through weathering of continental silicates and deposition o...

Short-term weathering rates (chemical denudation) of primary weathering products were derived from an analysis of fluxes in precipitation and streamwater. Rainfall, streamflow (runoff), and related water quality have been monitored at the Panola Mountain Research Watershed (PMRW) since 1985. Regression relations of stream solute concentration of major ions including weathering products [sodium ...

OVER the last several years the Department of Chemical Engineering of Monash University has been studying the general problem of mineral beneficiation of cobalt minerals. As part of the investigation, samples were obtained from the cobalt-mineralized area around Mount Cobalt, which is situated some 11o km south of Cloncurry in north-west Queensland, Australia. The geology of the area has been d...

Two soilkaprolite profiles from ridge crest sites in central Georgia were investigated for mineralogical and textural trends to help elucidate the relationship between Cenozoic Coastal Plain deposits landward of the Fall Line and the Piedmont. Result from the study of a 10.5 m thick sequence in Sparta, Georgia reveal a deep lateritic profile showing complete loss of plagioclase, gradational los...

[1] Weathering of olivine basalt by H2SO4-HCl aqueous solutions at the conditions of early Mars was investigated through numerical modeling in a system open with respect to CO2 and O2 only. The model includes dissolution rates of primary and secondary minerals and oxidation rate of aqueous Fe, as well as chemical equilibration among solutes, dissolved gases, and precipitates. The results reveal...

Biotite is a common constituent of silicate bedrock. Its weathering releases plant nutrients and consumes atmospheric CO2. Because of its stoichiometric relationship with its transformational weathering product and sensitivity to botanical activity, calculating biotite weathering rates using watershed mass-balance methods has proven challenging. At Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory the coupling of ...

The nature of ancient hydrological systems onMars has been the subject of ongoing controversy, driven largely by a disconnect between observational evidence for flowing water on the Martian surface at multiple scales and the incompatibility of such observations with theoretical models that predict a cold early Martian environment in which liquid water is unstable. Here we present geochemical da...

Continental crust is too Si-rich and Mg-poor to derive directly from mantle melting, which generates basaltic rather than felsic magmas. Converting basalt to more felsic compositions requires a second step involving Mg loss, which is thought to be dominated by internal igneous differentiation. However, igneous differentiation alone may not be able to generate granites, the most silicic endmembe...