TOF-SIMS ANALYSIS OF INTERPLANETARY DUST

Three interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) collected in the stratosphe re were analyzed with imaging time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectr ometry (TOF-SIMS) to investigate the elemental distribution within the se particles at high lateral resolution and to demonstrate the abiliti es of this new technique for the analysis of IDPs and other microsampl es. This study should furthermore show that it is possible to correlat e TOF-SIMS data and TEM observations of the same interplanetary dust p article. Element ratios for 15 different elements relative to Si were determined using SIMS sensitivities from analyses of several standards . The TOF-SIMS results show inhomogeneous distribution and large devia tions from chondritic abundances for several elements in IDP U2015G1 w hereas W7029A27 and L2005P9 show chondritic element ratios and a rela tively homogeneous distribution, respectively. These results, which ar e comparable with previous results obtained by different techniques, d emonstrate the reliability of TOF-SIMS, even for quantitative measurem ents. In U2015G1 halogen and sulphur enrichments were observed in an e xtremely fine-grained Fe oxide phase. This can easily be explained by contamination processes in the stratosphere.