Helium,neon, and argon in the iron meteorites Dongling,Nantan and Ningbo

The light noble gases He, Ne and Ar have been measured in the iron meteorites Dongling, Nantan and Ningbo. Dongling and Ningbo show a deficit of cosmic-ray that produced³He of ca. 30% and 10%, respectively, which is argued to be caused by the loss of³H (tritium) from the meteoroids during the time of their exposure to the cosmic radiation. Nantan has the lowest content of noble gases as yet reported for any iron meteorite. Cosmogenic³He and³⁸Ar are only about 1/5000 of those in Dongling which has particularly interesting implications if the two meteorites belong to the same fall^2]. In addition, Nantan contains nonspallogenic⁴He which we believe to be of radiogenic origin. This radiogenic⁴He, together with a U-content of 2.6×10⁻¹¹ g/g^20] yields a⁴He retention age close to the cosmic-ray exposure age of Dongling. If Dongling and Nantan were part of the same meteoroid^2], this result would indicate that He retention in the meteoroid age were 4,500 Ma, a U-content of less than 7.2×10⁻¹³ g/g is required to explain the non-cosmogenic₄He present. An upper limit to the number of transuranium or superheavy-element atoms which have decayed by α-emission in Nantan since onset of He retention is 2×10¹⁰ per gram.