| Abstract: | Another explorative study of the use of factor analysis in meteorite geochemistry has been made. Forty-two major and trace elements were sought from analyses of 80 stony meteorites in recent articles. Incomplete data reduced the matrix to 30 elements in 55 stones. Missing data were substituted by mean values in the groups CC, (E+H+L+LL) and ACH (13, 28, 14 individuals, respectively): the effect of these substitutions was tested empirically. R-mode analysis with varimax rotation was carried out on these three sub-sets and on the whole set: interpretation focused on factor loadings and scores. Results on the three sub-sets gave little information of geochemical value, although the largest achondrite factor (lithophile elements) permits discrimination of eucrites, aubrites, diogenites and howardites. Analysis of all 55 meteorites showed the variance to be dominated by 1, a refractory-lithophile(Al, Mg, Ca, Zr, Sc, U, Th, La, Eu, Yb) factor, and 2, a volatile-chalcophile (Zn, Te, Cd, Bi, Tl) factor. Factor (1) scores will discriminate chondrites from achondrites: factor (2) scores delineate the compositional trend CC1, CC2, CC3, (E+H+L+LL) except for enstatite chondrites Indarch, Abee which fall with CC1. Further progress would need metal, sulphide and other mineral percentages for each meteorite. |
