Cosmogenic He, Ne, and Ar as well as the radionuclides Be-10, Al-26, Cl-36, Ca-41, Mn-53, and Fe-60 have been determined on samples from the Gebel Kamil ungrouped Ni-rich iron meteorite by noble gas mass spectrometry and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), respectively. The meteorite is associated with the Kamil crater in southern Egypt, which is about 45 m in diameter. Samples originate from an individual large fragment ("Individual") as well as from shrapnel. Concentrations of all cosmogenic nuclides-stable and radioactive-are lower by a factor 3-4 in the shrapnel samples than in the Individual. Assuming negligible Cl-36 decay during terrestrial residence (indicated by the young crater age <5000 years; Folco et al. 2011), data are consistent with a simple exposure history and a Cl-36-Ar-36 cosmic ray exposure age (CRE) of approximately (366 +/- 18) Ma (systematic errors not included). Both noble gases and radionuclides point to a pre-atmospheric radius >85 cm, i.e., a pre-atmospheric mass >20 tons, with a preferred radius of 115-120 cm (50-60 tons). The analyzed samples came from a depth of approximately 20 cm (Individual) and approximately 50-80 cm (shrapnel). The size of the Gebel Kamil meteoroid determined in this work is close to estimates based on impact cratering models combined with expectations for ablation during passage through the atmosphere (Folco et al. 2010, 2011).

We have developed a procedure that allows extraction of clean nanodiamond samples from primitive meteorites for isotopic analyses of trace elements on a timescale of just a week. This procedure includes microwave digestion and optimization of existing isolation techniques for further purification. Abundances of trace elements that are difficult to dissolve using standard procedures (e.g., Ir) are lower in the diamond residues prepared using the new technique. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) was explored as a means for isotopic measurements. Results obtained on diamond fractions from Allende and Murchison show the need for suitable matrix-adjusted standards to correct for fractionation effects; nevertheless they allow putting an upper limit on the abundance of Pt-198-H in nanodiamonds of similar to1 X 10(14) atoms/g. This limit is on the order of what can be expected from predictions of competing nucleosynthesis models and extrapolation of the apparently mass dependent abundance trend of the associated noble gases.Unfortunately, and unexpectedly, presolar silicon carbide is almost quantitatively dissolved during microwave digestion with HCl/HF/HNO3. Re-evaluation of the standard extraction technique, however, shows that it also may lead to severe loss of fine-grained SiC, a fact not commonly appreciated. A lower limit to SiC abundance in Murchison is 20 ppm, and previous conclusions that Murchison SiC is unusually coarse-grained compared to SiC in other primitive meteorites seem not to be warranted. Graphite and silicon nitride may survive and possibly can be separated after this step as suggested by a simulation experiment using terrestrial analog material, but the detailed behavior of meteoritic graphite requires further study. Copyright (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd.