Antimony in iron meteorites

Antimony concentrations determined by radiochemical neutron activation analysis in 60 iron meteorites range from 0.2 ng/g to 36 μg/g. The meteorites with the highest Sb concentrations are those of the non-magmatic groups IAB and IIICD, while the lowest Sb concentrations are found in groups IVA and IVB, the groups with the lowest concentrations of the other most volatile siderophiles Ge and Ga. In all groups Sb is positively correlated with Ni. In each of the magmatic groups slopes on log Sb vs. log Ni plots decrease with increasing Ni. This decrease may reflect an increasing tendency to avoid schreibersite during the analysis of high-Ni meteorites because Sb partitions strongly into schreibersite.Schreibersite from New Westville is enriched in Cr, Ni, Ge, As, Sb and Au and depleted in Fe, Co and Ir; the content of Sb in schreibersite is 540 × higher than the bulk metal value.The Sb abundances of the iron meteorite groups are as expected from volatility trends with the exception of IAB and IIAB in which abundances appear depleted. The most likely explanation for this and the decreasing slope in the magmatic groups is that one or more Sb-rich phases were not sampled during metal analyses.