EGU25-17926, updated on 15 Mar 2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17926
EGU General Assembly 2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Combined neutron and X-ray tomography of Martian meteorite NWA 7034 to locate hydrous phases
Estrid Naver1, Katrine Wulff Nikolajsen2, Martin Sæbye Carøe3, Jens Frydenvang2, Martin Bizzarro2, Jakob Sauer Jørgensen3, Henning Friis Poulsen4, and Luise Theil Kuhn1
Estrid Naver et al.
  • 1Department of Energy Conversion and Storage, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
  • 2GLOBE Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • 3Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
  • 4Department of Physics, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

Background
Meteorites originating from Mars represent the only tangible samples that allow us to investigate the geologic history of this planet, including its potential early habitability. The discovery of the polymict regolith breccia NWA 7034 meteorite and its pairs, informally known as Black Beauty, provides, for the first time, a direct time window into the earliest crustal processes on Mars [1,2]. Analyses of the crustal fragments from this meteorite indicates that water was present on the Martian surface 4450 million years ago [3].

Neutron tomographic imaging is a method for non-destructively characterising samples in 3D and as neutrons are sensitive to H it is possible to directly locate H-rich phases. When combined with X-ray tomographic imaging it is possible to confirm the identification of H and determine which minerals are hosting the H [4].

Methods
Two pieces of the Martian meteorite NWA 7034 have been analysed using neutron and X-ray tomography. High-resolution neutron CT was performed at ICON at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. X-ray CT was performed at the B05 beamline at European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in France by Phil Cook. The 3D volumes from each measurement were co-registered and high attenuation phases were segmented and identified.

Results
Comparison to theoretical attenuation values of minerals in the sample shows that high X-ray attenuation stems from Fe-oxides and high neutron attenuation stems from hydrous phases. There are more high attenuation X-ray spots than high attenuation neutron spots, which shows that not all Fe-oxides contain H. Segmentation also shows that all hydrous phases overlap with the Fe-oxide phases. As such, this data suggests that the water-related H in the meteorite is stored in Fe-oxides.

References
[1] M. Humayun et al., Nature 503 (2013), 513–516
[2] A. Goodwin et al., Astrobiology 22 (2022), 755-767
[3] Z. Deng et al., Science Advances 6 (2020), eabc4941
[4] J. Martell et al., Science Advances 8 (2022), eabn3044

How to cite: Naver, E., Nikolajsen, K. W., Carøe, M. S., Frydenvang, J., Bizzarro, M., Jørgensen, J. S., Poulsen, H. F., and Theil Kuhn, L.: Combined neutron and X-ray tomography of Martian meteorite NWA 7034 to locate hydrous phases, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17926, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17926, 2025.