Denticles on Chain Silicate Grain Surfaces and Their Utility as Indicators of Weathering Conditions on Earth and Mars

摘要

Denticulated margins (also known in older literature as "sawtooth," "cockscomb," or "hacksaw" terminations) are a common feature of pyroxenes and amphiboles, visible in optical and electron microscopes. Denticles are remnants of undissolved material that formerly constituted the walls between elongate etch pits, the characteristic aqueous-dissolution form of chain-silicate minerals. Denticles occur widely in terrestrial near-surface materials that have experienced low-temperature aqueous alteration, including chemically weathered regoliths, soils in a variety of climatic and geomorphic settings, sediments, and sedimentary rocks. Ranges of dissolution forms and dimensions (commonly tens of microns in length) are identical on both pyroxenes and amphiboles in these materials.