Lunar Meteorite News Archive 2008

July 20, 2008: Several new lunar meteorite finds from Northwest Africa have been named and approved by the NomCom of the Meteoritical Society, more recently - most of them being paired to older finds. However, two of them are new, and worth mentioning:

Northwest Africa 4898 - LUN B - TKW 137g

The first is an unbrecciated mare basalt: NWA 4898. The studies by Korotev et al show it to be distinct from all other lunar meteorites, and Apollo or Luna samples. A detailed abstract has been published by Greshake et al at the 39th LPSC in March 2008, entitled NWA 4898: A New High-Alumina Mare Basalt from the Moon.

Northwest Africa 5000 - LUN A - TKW 11,528g

With a TKW of more than 11 kilos NWA 5000 is another extraordinary find - hence its nickname "The Rock". But it's not just the size that makes NWA 5000 unique - it is the first leucogabbroic feldspathic lunar breccia in our collections. An abstract on the Petrology and Bulk Composition of Large Lunar Feldspathic Leucogabbroic Breccia NWA 5000 was published by Irving et al at the 39th LPSC in March 2008.

January 31, 2008: A new lunar mare basalt has been officially named and approved by the NomCom of the Meteoritical Society, and published in The Meteoritical Bulletin Database:

Northwest Africa 4734 - LUN B - TKW 1,372g

This fascinating new unbrecciated lunar gabbro shares many features with the Antarctic LAP mare basalts - in fact, they look more like twins with identical textures and chemical compositions, making a source crater pairing more than probable. Please visit Randy Korotev's NWA 4734 page for more information on this exciting new find. >> older archive entries >>