On the 455th birthday of William Shakespeare’s birth, a CM2 stony meteorite crashed into Costa Rica, a country one-seventh the size of my Montana and one-third the population. What that means is that I can imagine what its like there in terms of population density and size, but with less snow, fewer grizzly bears, and no ponderosa pine trees. Murchison,
The Aguas Zarcas Meteorite Fall: A 21st Century Murchison Read Post »
On July 20th much of the world celebrated with the United States the 50th Anniversary of the first landing of men on The Moon. I went to Florida with my wife to Kennedy Space Center and was there on the actual anniversary day. It was a great experience. One thing that I noted, however, was the lack of moonrocks on
The mystery of the location of a 5-ton mass of iron, suspected of being a meteorite, after being found in the California Mojave Desert, but was never recovered. It came as a surprise to me when I received a large manilla envelope in the mail, containing photo-copies of newspaper clippings and photos of what was described as being “Another Large
NWA 487 L/LL3.4 was distributed by Marvin and Kitty Killgore. They called it The Coffee Piece for its brown tint. I bought this thin section from them at the May 2003 Costa Mesa show. Even though an unequilibrated Type 3.4, it is apparent from its texture that its material has been recycled. Complex and compound chondrules, relict grains and aqueous
In previous columns, we have been working through a review of the classic tektite morphologies. If the perfect minimalist tektite collection was limited to just three variations, I would choose a dumbbell, a teardrop, and a patty. In this edition, patties take the stage. Patties are a proxy for a range of shapes that began life as oscillating spheroids of
Investigating planetary interiors with meteorites: the case of Mars Nicola Mari* *School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, UK. The interiors of the terrestrial planets still remain a realm of absolute mystery. The internal compositions and thermodynamics of the terrestrial planets are keys to ultimately understand how they initially formed and evolved in differing planetary systems and can
Investigating planetary interiors with meteorites: the case of Mars Read Post »
Our Meteorite of the Month is kindly provided by Tucson Meteorites who hosts The Meteorite Picture of the Day. Contributed by Hanno Strufe, IMCA 4267
