Though not unprecedented, it’s not overly common for a manmade material to become a mineral. Minerals must have a natural occurring source. It is from this first found naturally occurring source that the term Type Locality is derived. In the case of Krotite, CaAl2O4 was synthetically derived before being found naturally in a CAI within NWA 1934 in 2011. Krotite is a low-pressure high-temperature polymorph of Dmitryivanovite meaning they have the same composition but different structure. Dmitryivanovite just happens to also be a mineral with a meteorite Type Locality too, NWA 470 a CH3. Type locality specimens are one of the interesting “sidebar” pieces of my meteorite collecting. Usually, I happen upon them looking through Mindat data and then have to try hunting down an available piece. So presented with a posting about its Type Locality status from the main mass holder, stating that some of this NWA was still available after over 10 years, made it easy to convince myself I should have a piece.
A bonus of having the necessary equipment to make petrology slides is not having to wait a long time to get a look inside a piece. Answering the question of if the particular 2.3G, as found fragment, I picked out would have any CAIs in it. The question was resolved in less than an hour from package delivery, which might be a record for me. Hopefully one day this article will be updated with one for the much harder to get dimorph Type Locality NWA 470…
