Skip to main content
Kent Academic Repository

Micrometeorites: Insights into the flux, sources and atmospheric entry of extraterrestrial dust at Earth

Genge, Matthew J., van Ginneken, Matthias, Suttle, Martin D. (2020) Micrometeorites: Insights into the flux, sources and atmospheric entry of extraterrestrial dust at Earth. Planetary and Space Science, 187 . Article Number 104900. ISSN 0032-0633. (doi:10.1016/j.pss.2020.104900) (KAR id:88148)

Abstract

Micrometeorites (MMs) provide constraints on the flux and sources of extraterrestrial dust falling on Earth as well as recording the processes occurring during atmospheric entry. Collections of micrometeorites have been recovered from a wide variety of environments including Antarctic moraine, rock traps, ice and snow and on roof tops in urban areas. Studies of the mineralogy and composition of MMs suggest that most particles (>98%) >50 ​μm in diameter have asteroidal sources, whilst ~50% of particles smaller than 50 ​μm are likely to be derived from comets. The relative abundance of S(IV)-type asteroid materials, similar to ordinary chondrites increases with size, although C-type asteroidal materials, similar to carbonaceous chondrites dominate over all. Although MMs provide excellent evidence on the nature and abundance of extraterrestrial dust at the Earth’s orbit they are not without bias and uncertainty. Mineralogical and compositional change during atmospheric entry makes the exact nature of their precursors uncertain complicating evaluation of source beyond basic classes of material. This is particularly true at larger sizes when complete melting to form cosmic spherules occurs, however, unmelted MMs >50 ​μm in size are also often thermally altered. Mixing with atmospheric oxygen and mass fractionation by evaporation furthermore complicates the use of oxygen isotope compositions in identifying parent bodies. All MM collections are suggested to exhibit biases owing to: (1) collection method, (2) terrestrial weathering, (3) terrestrial contamination, and (4) erosion and deposition by terrestrial surface processes. Even in the least biased collections, those collected by dedicated melting of Antarctic snow, erosive loss of material is suggested here to make fluxes uncertain by factors of up to ~2. The abundance of asteroid-derived MMs observed in collections contradicts models of the orbital evolution of interplanetary dust to Earth, which suggests >70% should be provided by comets.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1016/j.pss.2020.104900
Uncontrolled keywords: Micrometeorites; Meteors; Interplanetary dust; AsteroidsComets
Subjects: Q Science > QE Geology > QE515 Geochemistry
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Natural Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Funders: Science and Technology Facilities Council (https://ror.org/057g20z61)
Depositing User: Matthias van Ginneken
Date Deposited: 14 May 2021 13:58 UTC
Last Modified: 21 Sep 2022 15:44 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/88148 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

van Ginneken, Matthias.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2508-7021
CReDIT Contributor Roles:
  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.