Read on Twitter
Today is the Fall Anniversary or Birthday of Tissint, the martian meteorite I studied for 2 years as a Masters student. Out of the ~200 martian meteorites we have on Earth Tissint was one of the only 5 we have witnessed falling from the sky. That's why it's so special.
We usually find meteorites in Antarctica or on desert pavement. If you think about it, these are very barren landscapes, so seeing a random black rock on ice or sand is quite noticeable. Tissint Fell around 2AM, July 18, 2011 near Oued Drâa valley, east of Tata, Morocco
Tissint was a heavily studied meteorite since it had not succumb to much weathering and was collected quickly. Water and even surrounding rocks can really mess up our results. As a student it was my job to figure out why we had two different ages from three different samples
So we said hmm... well Tissint is related to (now ~15) other martian meteorites by ejection age and petrologic type. Perhaps Tissint represents two different layers that were co-mingled upon ejection?
Our hypothesis was even cited in a recent paper on Tissint Schulz et al. 2020
So then I went to WORK. I got 8 different samples to see if there was any sort of heterogeneity between them isotopically using the three different systems (Lu-Hf, Rb-Sr, and Sm-Nd). I did the chemistry here in our lab which was intense but rewarding.
Simultaneously we tested a hypothesis that Tissint melt pockets included martian soils. For this we had to make a thick section and do some laser ablation work and analyzed it for Pb isotopes, HSE and trace elements. https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2019/eposter/2921.pdf
I spent two years of my life dedicate to this incredible sample. It is very special to me and represents me developing new skills and transitioning into planetary science. Even had a dress made out of a thin section image by @terrapersona.
For my PhD i'm now studying other martian meteorites that are related to Tissint. I'll be putting ages on them and doing other analyses that I'm not as familiar with like oxygen fugacity. I have a poster of the sample I started on.
Hopefully yall learned something new
And to answer Cardi B's question we look at these samples cause they're the only physical materials we have from Mars. Teeny, tiny, smol isotopes within their minerals can give us major clues on the duration of volcanic activity, how it's mantle mixes, and even how did Mars form.
And here is advisor talking about the oldest meteorite we have within the particular suite i'm looking at. It was 2.4 Ga suggesting that this particular volcanic system was active for 2 billion years
