Tianqi Xie

University of Saskatchewan | U of S · Department of Geological Sciences

Introduction: Plagioclase feldspar is the most abundant components of igneous rocks found in the crust of Earth and lunar highland rocks. They can also be seen in lunar and Martian meteorites, and detected on the surfaces of Mars, Venus and Mercury. Knowledge of how plagioclases response to the variations of pressure and temperature is important fo...

Definition Shock metamorphism is the production of irreversible chemical or physical changes in target materials as a result of the passage of shock waves generated from hypervelocity impact events.

Raman spectroscopy is a useful tool for purposely selecting moderately to strongly shocked samples to study in lab and/or return in future lunar missions.

During planetary exploration mission operations, one of the key responsibilities of the instrument teams to determine data viability for subsequent analysis. During the 2019 CanMoon Lunar Sample Return Analogue Mission, the Lead Raman Specialist manually examined each spectra to provide quality assurance/validation. This non-trivial process require...

Earth’s moon is a primary exploration target for space agencies around the world. The Moon records and preserves key information about fundamental processes that shape planetary crusts such as impact cratering. Understanding shock effects in lunar anorthite (Ca-rich end-member of plagioclase feldspar), the principal component of anorthosite and mos...

Plagioclase feldspar is one of the abundant minerals on the surface of the Earth, the Moon and Mars, and is also commonly found in meteorites. This dissertation seeks to better understand the phase changes in plagioclase when subjected to meteorite impact and fundamental information about impact cratering process. Shock features in plagioclase fro...

Plagioclase feldspar is one of the most abundant minerals on the surface of the Earth, the Moon, and Mars, and is also commonly found in meteorites. Studying shock effects in feldspar thus provides us with fundamental information about impact cratering processes on planetary bodies. In this study, plagioclase from monomict and polymict breccias, im...

Synthetic Mg2TiO4 qandilite was investigated to 50 and 40.4 GPa at room temperature using Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction, respectively. The Raman measurements showed that cubic Mg2TiO4 spinel transforms to a high pressure tetragonal (I41/amd, No.141) phase at 14.7 GPa. Owing to sluggish kinetics at room temperature, the spinel phase coexi...

The CanMars Mars Sample Return Analogue Deployment (MSRAD) was a closely simulated end-to-end Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission scenario, with instrumentation, goals, and constraints modeled on the upcoming NASA Mars 2020 rover mission. The exercise utilized the CSA Mars Exploration Science Rover (MESR) rover, deployed to Utah, USA, at a Mars-analog...

Co2TiO4 spinel (Co2TiO4-Sp) was synthesized at 1573 K and room P by heating in an argon atmosphere for 72 h, and quasi-hydrostatically compressed to ~ 24 GPa using a diamond-anvil cell in conjunction with a synchrotron X-ray radiation (ambient T). We found that the Co2TiO4-Sp was stable up to ~ 21 GPa and transformed to a new phase at higher P. Wit...

The CanMars Mars sample return (MSR) analogue mission was conducted as a field and operational test for the Mars 2020 sample cache rover mission and was the most realistic known MSR rover analogue mission to-date. A rover — similar in scale to that of rover planned for NASA's Mars 2020 mission — was deployed to a scientifically relevant Mars-analog...

The return of samples from known locations on Mars is among the highest priority goals of the international planetary science community. A possible scenario for Mars Sample Return (MSR) is a series of 3 missions: sample cache, fetch, and retrieval. The NASA Mars 2020 mission represents the first cache mission and was the focus of the CanMars analog...

The vibrational properties of synthetic galaxite, MnAl2O4, were investigated at various pressures (0–29.7 GPa) and temperatures (80–973 K), respectively. The Raman frequencies of all observed bands for galaxite continuously increase with increasing pressure and decrease with increasing temperature, respectively. The quantitative analysis shows that...

Zn2TiO4 spinel (Zn2TiO4-Sp) was synthesized by a solid-state reaction method (1573 K, room P and 72 h) and quasi-hydrostatically compressed to ~24 GPa using a DAC coupled with a synchrotron X-ray radiation (ambient T). We found that the Zn2TiO4-Sp was stable up to ~21 GPa and transformed to another phase at higher P. With some theoretical simulatio...

Introduction: Meteorite impact craters are the dominant surface feature on most terrestrial planets and provide fundamental information about planetary evolution [1]. Many terrestrial impact stuctures have been eroded to such a degree that only the underlying autochthonous target rocks are preserved or the crater structure has been infilled by late...

Using a diamond-anvil cell and synchrotron X-ray diffraction, the compressional behavior of a synthetic qandilite Mg2.00(1)Ti1.00(1)O4 has been investigated up to about 14.9 GPa at 300 K. The pressure–volume data fitted to the third-order Birch–Murnaghan equation of state yield an isothermal bulk modulus (K T0) of 175(5) GPa, with its first derivat...

The Raman spectra of synthetic stronadelphite, Sr5(PO4)3F, were investigated up to 21.1 GPa using a diamond anvil cell at room temperature. The new splittings of the PO4 asymmetric stretching ν3b(Ag) and bending ν4b(Ag) vibrations were observed during compression. The Raman frequencies of all observed bands for stronadelphite continuously increase...

To investigate coloration genesis and color change mechanism of diamond, we conducted high pressure high temperature treatment (7GPa, 1480 degree C) on yellow HPHT synthetic diamond in multi anvil apparatus. IR spectra, low temperature PL spectra and DiamondView images were collected before and after the treatment. The results shows that after the...