Cathodoluminescence and Raman Spectromicroscopy of Forsterite in Tagish Lake Meteorite: Implications for Astromineralogy

The Tagish Lake meteorite is CI/CM2 chondrite, which fell by a fireball event in January 2000. This study emphasizes the cathodoluminescence (CL) and Raman spectroscopical properties of the Tagish Lake meteorite in order to classify the meteoritic forsterite and its relation to the crystallization processes in a parent body. The CL-zoning of Tagish Lake meteorite records the thermal history of chondrules and terrestrial weathering. Only the unweathered olivine is forsterite, which is CL-active. The variation of luminescence in chondrules of Tagish Lake meteorite implies chemical inhomogeneity due to low-grade thermal metamorphism. The blue emission center in forsterite due to crystal lattice defect is proposed as being caused by rapid cooling during the primary crystallization and relatively low-temperature thermal metamorphism on the parent body of Tagish Lake meteorite. This is in a good agreement with the micro-Raman spectroscopical data. A combination of cathodoluminescence and micro-Raman spectroscopies shows some potentials in study of the asteroidal processes of parent bodies in solar system.

Contrast from epitaxially sandwiched macromolecules

A new specimen preparation technique for visualizing macromolecules by conventional transmission electron microscopy has been developed. In this technique the biopolymer-molecule is embedded in a thin monocrystalline gold foil. Such embedding can be performed in the following way: the biopolymer is deposited on an epitaxially-grown thin single-crystal gold film. The molecule is then occluded by further epitaxial growth. In such an epitaxial sandwich an occluded molecule is expected to behave as a crystal-lattice defect and give rise to contrast in the electron microscope.The resolution of the method should be limited only by the precision with which the epitaxially grown gold reflects the details of the molecular structure and, in favorable cases, can approach the lattice resolution limit.In order to estimate the strength of the contrast due to the void-effect arising from occlusion of the DNA-molecule in a gold crystal some calculations were performed.