Scientists monitor the response of feldspar minerals to rapid compression
A US-German research team has simulated meteorite impacts in the lab and followed the resulting structural changes in two feldspar minerals with X-rays as they happened. The results of the experiments at DESY and at Argonne National Laboratory in the US show that structural changes can occur at very different pressures, depending on the compression rate. The findings, published in the 1 February issue of the scientific journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters (published online in advance), will aid other scientist to reconstruct the conditions leading to impact craters on Earth and other terrestrial planets.
>Read more on the PETRA III at DESY website
Image: Scanning electron microscopy image of the micro-structure of albite prior to the rapid compression experiments.
Credit: Stony Brook University, Lars Ehm