Jessica Barnes, Author at Elements

Halogen Record of Fluid Activity in the Solar System

By Jessica Barnes and Michael E. Zolensky |

Halogens are mobile in geological fluids, making them excellent tracers of volatile activity. Halogen-bearing minerals in diverse planetary materials, coupled with chlorine isotope compositions of bulk samples and minerals, can be used to infer the presence of fluids on planetary surfaces, crusts, and interiors. Halogen element and isotopic evidence helps define the role that halogens play in diverse planetary environments (e.g., asteroids, the Moon, and Mars), which offers insights into fluid activity in the early Solar System and in the role such fluids have played in volatile transport, alteration processes, and habitability throughout geological history.

Sulfur in the Apollo Lunar Basalts and Implications for Future Sample-Return Missions

By Maryjo Brounce, Jeremy W. Boyce, Jessica Barnes and Francis M. McCubbin |

Between 1969 and 1972, Apollo mission astronauts explored the lunar surface, collecting geologic materials and returning them to Earth for careful study. After consideration of many lines of evidence, one of the many major results of studying the Apollo rocks is the broad scientific consensus that the Moon formed from the debris of a giant impact of a large body with the proto-Earth (e.g., Stevenson 1987). This left the Moon depleted in highly volatile elements such as hydrogen, relative to Earth. So it was thought.