Browsing by Author "Slater, Greg F."

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    Soluble organic compounds in the Tagish Lake meteorite
    (2014) Hilts, Robert; Herd, Christopher D. K.; Simkus, Danielle N.; Slater, Greg F.
    The C2 ungrouped Tagish Lake meteorite preserves a range of lithologies, reflecting variable degrees of parent-body aqueous alteration. Here, we report on soluble organic compounds, including aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, monocarboxylic acids, and amino acids, found within specimens representative of the range of aqueous alteration. We find that differences in soluble organic compounds among the lithologies may be explained by oxidative, fluid-assisted alteration, primarily involving the derivation of soluble organic compounds from macromolecular material. In contrast, amino acids probably evolved from precursor molecules, albeit in parallel with other soluble organic compounds. Our results demonstrate the role of parent-body alteration in the modification of organic matter and generation of prebiotic compounds in the early solar system, and have implications for interpretation of the complement of soluble organic compounds in carbonaceous chondrites.
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    Soluble organic compounds in the Tagish Lake Meteorite
    (2014) Hilts, Robert; Herd, Christopher D. K.; Simkus, Danielle N.; Slater, Greg F.
    The C2 ungrouped Tagish Lake meteorite preserves a range of lithologies reflecting variable degrees of parent body aqueous alteration. Here we report on soluble organic compounds, including aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, monocarboxylic acids and amino acids, found within specimens representative of the range of aqueous alteration. We find that differences in soluble organic compounds among the lithologies may be explained by oxidative, fluid-assisted alteration, involving changes from one type of soluble organic compound to another, or derivation of soluble organic compounds from macromolecular material. Our results demonstrate the role of parent body alteration in the modification of organic matter in the early Solar System, and have implications for interpretation of the complement of soluble organic compounds in carbonaceous chondrites.
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    Synthesis of prebiotic organic compounds within the Tagish Lake Meteorite
    (2014) Hilts, Robert; Herd, Christopher D. K.; Simkus, Danielle N.; Slater, Greg F.
    The Tagish Lake meteorite stones are composites of several different lithologies that exhibit varying degrees of parent body hydrothermal alteration. Through leeching regimens with polar and weakly polar solvents , and by employing GC-MS techniques, we found within the extracts several different classes of soluble organic compounds, ranging from highly polar monocarboxylic acids, amino acids and phenols, to essentially non-polar aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons. The differences in both the concentrations and the classes of soluble polar organic species across the four lithologies studied are likely the result of varying degrees of oxidative hydrothermal alteration of primordial insoluble organic matter (IOM).The amino acids found in the water extracts, by contrast, are probably derived from small precursor molecules ,such as aldehydes and ketones, via aqueous-based reactions within the parent body.