# Temporally distributed parent body accretion in the C reservoir of the solar system

## TL;DR

This paper models the timing of parent body accretion in the C reservoir of the solar system, revealing a wide range of formation times from less than 1 million to about 4 million years after solar system formation, with implications for planetary evolution.

## Contribution

It provides the first evidence for temporally distributed accretion of C reservoir parent bodies, linking formation times to degrees of alteration and differentiation.

## Key findings

- CR parent bodies accreted from <1 Ma to ~4 Ma after CAIs.
- Accretion times inversely correlate with meteorite alteration.
- Differentiated and undifferentiated C reservoir bodies formed over overlapping times.

## Abstract

Accretion processes in protoplanetary disks produce a diversity of small bodies that played a crucial role in multiple reshuffling events throughout the solar system and in both early and late accretion of planets. Application of thermo-chronometers to meteorites provides precise dating of the formation age of mineralogical components. Nucleosynthetic anomalies indicating a dichotomy between NC and C meteorites and precise parent body (PB) chronology can be combined with thermal evolution models to constrain the timescale of accretion and dynamical processes in the early solar system. Achondrite PBs are considered to have accreted early and mostly in the NC region, while late accretion in the C region produced mostly undifferentiated PBs, such as the CR chondrite PB that formed as late as 4 Ma after CAIs. However, presence of more evolved CR-related meteorites suggests also an earlier accretion timing. We present modeling evidence for a temporally distributed accretion of parent bodies of CR-related meteorite groups that originate from a C reservoir and range from aqueously altered chondrites to partially differentiated primitive achondrites. The PB formation times derived range from <1 Ma to ~4 Ma after solar system formation, with ~3.7 Ma, ~1.5-2.75 Ma, <~0.6 Ma, and <~0.7 Ma for CR, Flensburg, NWA 6704, and NWA 011. This implies that accretion processes in the C reservoir started as early as in the NC reservoir and produced differentiated PBs with carbonaceous compositions in addition to undifferentiated C chondritic PBs. The accretion times correlate inversely with the degree of the meteorites' alteration, metamorphism, or differentiation. Accretion times for CI/CM, Ryugu, and Tafassites PBs of ~3.75 Ma, ~1-3 Ma, and 1.1 Ma, respectively, fit well into this correlation in agreement with the thermal and alteration conditions suggested by the meteorites.