Abstract-If Vesta is the parent body of the howardite, eucrite, and diogenite (HED) meteorites, then geochemical and petrologic constraints for the meteorites may be used in conjunction with astronomical constraints for the size and mass of Vesta to (1) determine the size of a possible metal core in Vesta and (2) model the igneous differentiation and internal structure of Vesta.The density of Vesta and petrologic models for HED meteorites together suggest that the amount of metal in the parent body is <25 mass%, with a best estimate of -5%, assuming no porosity. For a porosity of up to 5% in the silicate fraction of the asteroid, the permissible metal content is <30%. These results suggest that any metal core in the HED parent body and Vesta is not unusually large.A variety of geochemical and other data for HED meteorites are consistent with the idea that they originated in a magma ocean. It appears that diogenites formed by crystal accumulation in a magma ocean cumulate pile and that most noncumulate eucrites (excepting such eucrites as Bouvante and Stannem) formed by subsequent crystallization of the residual melts. Modelling results suggest that the HED parent body is enriched in rare earth elements by a factor of -2.5-3.5 relative to CI-chondrites and that it has approximately chondritic Mg/Si and AVSc ratios. Stokes settling calculations for a Vesta-wide, nonturbulent magma ocean suggest that early-crystallizing magnesian olivine, orthopyroxene, and pigeonite would have settled relatively quickly, permitting fractional crystallization to occur, but that later-crystallizing phases would have settled (or floated) an order of magnitude more slowly, allowing, instead, a closer approach to equilibrium crystallization for the more evolved (eucritic) melts. This would have inhibited the formation of a plagioclase-flotation crust on Vesta.Plausible models for the interior of Vesta, which are consistent with the data for HED meteorites and Vesta, include a metal core ( 4 3 0 km radius), an olivine-rich mantle (-65-220 km thick), a lower crustal unit (-1243 km thick) composed of pyroxenite, from which diogenites were derived, and an upper crustal unit (-23-42 km thick), from which eucrites originated. The present shape of Vesta (with -60 km difference in the maximum and minimum radius) suggests that all of the crustal materials, and possibly some of the underlying olivine from the mantle, could have been locally excavated or exposed by impact cratering.

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available online at http://meteoritics.org 261 Abstract-Portales Valley (PV) is an unusual metal-veined meteorite that has been classified as an H6 chondrite. It has been regarded either as an annealed impact melt breccia, as a primitive achondrite, or as a meteorite with affinities to silicated iron meteorites. We studied the petrology of PV using a variety of geochemical-mineralogical techniques. Our results suggest that PV is the first well-documented metallic-melt meteorite breccia. Mineral-chemical and other data suggest that the protolith to PV was an H chondrite. The composition of FeNi metal in PV is somewhat fractionated compared to H chondrites and varies between coarse vein and silicate-rich portions. It is best modeled as having formed by partial melting at temperatures of ∼940-1150 °C, with incomplete separation of solid from liquid metal. Solid metal concentrated in the coarse vein areas and S-bearing liquid metal concentrated in the silicate-rich areas, possibly as a result of a surface energy effect. Both carbon and phosphorus must have been scavenged from large volumes and concentrated in metallic liquid. Graphite nodules formed by crystallization from this liquid, whereas phosphate formed by reaction between P-bearing metal and clinopyroxene components, depleting clinopyroxene throughout much of the meteorite and growing coarse phosphate at metal-silicate interfaces. Some phosphate probably crystallized from P-bearing liquids, but most probably formed by solid-state reaction at ∼975-725 °C. Phosphate-forming and FeO-reduction reactions were widespread in PV and entailed a change in the mineralogy of the stony portion on a large scale. Portales Valley experienced protracted annealing from supersolidus to subsolidus temperatures, probably by cooling at depth within its parent body, but the main differences between PV and H chondrites arose because maximum temperatures were higher in PV. A combination of a relatively weak shock event and elevated pre-shock temperatures probably produced the vein-and-breccia texture, with endogenic heating being the main heat source for melting, and with stress waves from an impact event being an essential trigger for mobilizing metal. Portales Valley is best classified as an H7 metallic-melt breccia of shock stage S1. The meteorite is transitional between more primitive (chondritic) and evolved (achondrite, iron) meteorite types and offers clues as to how differentiation could have occurred in some asteroidal bodies.

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