[meteorite-list] Higher than expected levels of sodium ... suggest that the dust clouds from which the building blocks of the Earth and neighboring planets formed were much denser than previously supposed.

[Steve Dunklee]

Ionized particles in the early formation of chondrules would hold a charge. This charge would hold sodium vapor rather than allowing it to be driven away, much the way a sodium vapor lamp works. In effect the charge in addition to the low gravity would would tend to concentrate the available sodium , which would be deposited in the chondrules. You have to remember that most chondrules formed before the sun did ,so there was nothing to drive the gasses away which could allow higher than expected sodium in chondrules. Once the sun ignited any surface gasses would be driven away but any trapped sodium would remain.
    Higher sodium values do not prove higher concentrations of gasses at formation. If they were higher they would permeate the entire structure rather than be on the surface of the crystals,  much the way salt concentrates on the surface of ice crystals in the arctic.
 Just my opinion
Steve Dunklee



--- On Thu, 6/19/08, Darren Garrison <cynapse at charter.net> wrote:

> From: Darren Garrison <cynapse at charter.net>
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Higher than expected levels of sodium ... suggest that the dust clouds from which the building blocks of the Earth and neighboring planets formed were much denser than previously supposed.
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Thursday, June 19, 2008, 10:44 PM
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080619142124.htm
> 
> Chemical Clues Point To Dusty Origin For Earth-like Planets
> ScienceDaily (June 20, 2008) — Higher than expected
> levels of sodium found in a
> 4.6 billion-year-old meteorite suggest that the dust clouds
> from which the
> building blocks of the Earth and neighboring planets formed
> were much denser
> than previously supposed. The study, by scientists from the
> Carnegie
> Institution, American Museum of Natural History, and U.S.
> Geological Survey, is
> published in the June 20 issue of Science.
> 
> Conel Alexander and Fred Ciesla of the Carnegie
> Institution's Department of
> Terrestrial Magnetism, with colleagues Jeffrey Grossman of
> the U.S. Geological
> Survey and Denton Ebel of the American Museum of Natural
> History, analyzed the
> sodium content of grains in objects called
> "chondrules" from the Semarkona
> meteorite, which fell in India in 1940.
> 
> The Semarkona meteorite, like all other chondrule-bearing
> meteorites (known as
> chondrites), dates from the early stages of the solar
> system's formation. Unlike
> most others, however, its constituents have been relatively
> unaltered by heat
> and chemical changes over the more than four billion years
> since its origin,
> making it an important window into the early history of the
> solar system.
> 
> Chondrules, which make up 20 to 80% of the volume of
> chondrites, are round,
> roughly millimeter-sized objects made of glass and
> crystals. Chondrules are
> thought to have formed by flash heating of dust in the
> primordial solar system.
> >From the types of minerals found in chondrules,
> scientists have determined that
> they formed at temperatures of up to nearly 2,000° C
> (3600° F). The source of
> this high heat, which would have affected vast areas of
> dust, is unknown. The
> heat would also be expected to have boiled off many of the
> volatile chemical
> elements, such as sodium, leaving the chondrules depleted
> in these elements.
> 
> But the chemical analyses by the research team found that
> the Semarkona
> chondrules had surprisingly high sodium abundances when
> they formed, indicating
> that sodium was not driven off. Rather, it remained at
> nearly constant levels
> during chondrule formation.
> 
> "Chondrules formed as molten droplets produced by what
> was probably one of the
> most energetic processes that operated in the early solar
> system," says
> Alexander. "You would expect all the sodium to
> evaporate and be lost from the
> chondrules under such conditions. Instead, the sodium was
> retained. The
> chondrules stayed as effectively closed systems throughout
> the heating and
> melting."
> 
> The researchers determined that in order for the molten
> droplets that formed the
> chondrules to remain as closed systems and retain constant
> levels of sodium, the
> initial dust cloud must have been far denser than
> previously supposed. "If the
> droplets were crowded close enough together, then the
> sodium vapor in the spaces
> in between would reach a saturation point," says
> Alexander, "and that would
> prevent further evaporation."
> 
> To achieve this condition, the density of dust in the
> chondrule-forming regions
> of the early solar system must have been at least about 10
> grams per cubic
> meter, and possibly much more. This is at least 100 times
> the densities
> considered by previous models of chondrule formation, which
> had assumed at most
> densities of only about 0.1 grams per cubic meter, and
> normally considerably
> less. At densities of 10 grams per cubic meter or more,
> regions only a few
> thousand kilometers across, small by astronomical
> standards, could collapse
> under their own gravity to make objects that would be 10s
> of kilometers across.
> 
> "What's notable about this result is that it
> raises the possibility that the
> formation of chondrules in these high-density regions was
> linked to the
> formation of kilometer-sized objects called planetesimals,
> which were the first
> stage in building Earth-like planets," says Alexander.
> "It will also help narrow
> down the possibilities for the cause of the heating that
> produced the
> chondrules, as well as the sizes of the regions where they
> formed. Heating
> chondrules to their peak temperatures and then quickly
> cooling them down when
> they are present at such high densities is a significant
> challenge for any
> mechanism proposed to explain chondrule origin. These tiny
> objects still have a
> lot to tell us about how our solar system took shape."
> 
> This research was supported by the Carnegie Institution,
> the NASA Origins of
> Solar Systems Program, and the NASA Cosmochemistry Program.
> 
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