Related papers: New Indivisible Geoscience Paradigm
The relationship between stars and planets provides important information for understanding the interior composition, mineralogy, and overall classification of small planets (R $\lesssim$ 3.5R$_{\oplus}$). Since stars and planets are formed…
In the last few years astronomical surveys have expanded the reach of planetary science into the realm of small and dense extrasolar worlds. These share a number of characteristics with the terrestrial and icy planetary objects of the Solar…
The terrestrial distribution of U, Th, and K abundances governs the thermal evolution, traces the differentiation, and reflects the bulk composition of the earth. Comparing the bulk earth composition to chondritic meteorites estimates the…
How do planetary systems, in general, and our own Solar System (SS), in particular, form? In conjunction, Astronomy and Isotope Cosmochemistry provide us with powerful tools to answer this age-old question. In this contribution, we review…
Earth possesses a persistent, internally-generated magnetic field, whereas no trace of a dynamo has been detected on Venus, at present or in the past, although a high surface temperature and recent resurfacing events may have removed…
Super-Earths are the most abundant planets known to date and are characterized by having sizes between that of Earth and Neptune, typical orbital periods of less than 100 days and gaseous envelopes that are often massive enough to…
We demonstrate in this paper that the recently discovered infinite-layer (IL) nickelates have much in common with a class of materials known as electrides. Oxide based electrides are compounds in which topotactic removal of loosely bound…
The new field of complex systems supports the view that a number of systems arising from disciplines as diverse as physics, biology, engineering, and economics may have certain quantitative features that are intriguingly similar. The earth…
Isotopic anomalies provide a means of probing the materials responsible for the formation of terrestrial planets. By analyzing new iron isotopic anomaly data from Martian meteorites and drawing insights from published data for O, Ca, Ti,…
The inner solar system possesses a unique orbital structure in which there are no planets inside the Mercury orbit and the mass is concentrated around the Venus and Earth orbits. The origins of these features still remain unclear. We…
Organic macromolecular matter is the dominant carrier of volatile elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and noble gases in chondrites -- the rocky building blocks from which Earth formed. How this macromolecular substance formed in space is…
Chondrules are mm-sized spherules found throughout primitive, chondritic meteorites. Flash heating by a shock front is the leading explanation of their formation. However, identifying a mechanism for creating shock fronts inside the solar…
Here it is shown how to find the interior structure of a variety of rock-and-iron planetary bodies by using the rock density and some aspects of the core density as known for the Earth and using a convection principle for the iron-rich…
Our present-day atmosphere is often used as an analog for potentially habitable exoplanets, but Earth's atmosphere has changed dramatically throughout its 4.5 billion year history. For example, molecular oxygen is abundant in the atmosphere…
The Jupiter-Saturn chaotic excitation (JSCE) scenario proposes that the protoplanetary disk was dynamically excited and depleted beyond ~1-1.5 au in a few Myr, offering a new and plausible explanation for several observed properties of the…
Combining isotopic constraints from meteorite data with dynamical models of planet formation proves to be advantageous in identifying the best model for terrestrial planet formation. Prior studies have shown that the probability of…
The nucleosynthetic isotope signatures of meteorites and the bulk silicate Earth (BSE) indicate that Earth consists of a mixture of "carbonaceous" (CC) and "non-carbonaceous" (NC) materials. We show that the fration of CC material recorded…
Estimated masses of fissioning and non-fissioning radioactive elements and their respective distributions within the Earth are presented, based upon the fundamental identity of the components of the interior 82% of the Earth, the…
In this paper, we present a new experimental facility, Little Earth Experiment, designed to study the hydrodynamics of liquid planetary cores. The main novelty of this apparatus is that a transparent electrically conducting electrolyte is…
In this review, three major changes in our understanding of the early history of the Solar System are presented. 1) Early differentiation: A few recent results support the idea that protoplanet formation and differentiation occurred partly…