This is the second installment on a series that focuses in on meteorites that bear the title of type locality. Be that of an entire grouping of meteorites in the overarching classification scheme or just a new mineral or two never before observed by science.
Suizhou is by class quite inconspicuous. After all its one of 12,364 classified L6s, making it a member of the most populated class of meteorites. Suizhou graced the earth with its presence on April 15th 1986 when a shower of 12 stones totaling 70 kg fell. The shock veins within the ordinary chondrite are the main area where some quite not-so-ordinary finds were made.
Polymorphism in the characteristic in mineralogy by which the same combination of chemical constituents are able to arrange themselves into a varied number of crystalline arrangements. This is a function of differences in formation conditions most often variances in temperature pressure or both, either upon initial crystallization or during a recrystallization event.
The prominent shock veins in Suizhou are what have proven to be a cornucopia of new minerals. Suizhou boasts an impressive record for a L6 as the Type locality of 9 newly discovered minerals. These include polymorphs of several minerals we are much more familiar seeing in write-ups like fayalite, ilmenite, forsterite, merrillite and chromite. To put the formation conditions in perspective, to achieve similar conditions on earth one would have to look in the deep mantle region.
