Direct measurements of impact devolatilization of calcite using a laser gun

Devolatilization of volatile-bearing minerals caused by hypervelocity impacts is believed to have played important roles in atmosphere formation and the evolution of surface environments of terrestrial planets. The threshold shock pressure required for devolatilization is one of the most important parameters. In this study, we show a new experimental method to directly measure impact Devolatilization of volatile-bearing minerals using a laser gun, which can avoid the problems of previous studies. We applied this method to the devolatilization of calcite. The results show that the shock pressure required for incipient devolatilization of calcite is lower than 24.9 ± 2.6 GPa which is significantly lower than previous experimental studies.