Martian Meteorite News Archive 2009

September 12, 2009: At this years shows in Sainte Marie aux Mines and Ensisheim, Alsace, France, I had the chance to add samples of two of the most recent martian meteorite finds to my collection:

Jiddat al Harasis 479 - b-SHE - TKW 553g

The first, Jiddat al Harasis 479, has been recovered from the hot deserts of Oman in 2008. A single, highly oriented stone with a lot of flow-lines was recovered near Haima, and it turned out to be a rare enriched diabasic shergottite with a texture that reminds me a lot of the Los Angeles shergottite.

Northwest Africa 5789 - o-SHE - TKW 49g

The second, NWA 5789, is a fascinating new find from Morocco, a permafic olivine-phyric martian meteorite which shares many textural and compositional features with the unusual Antarctic find Yamato 980459. NWA 5789 was first introduced to the public by Greg Hupé, soon followed by Stefan Ralew and Martin Altmann of Chladni's Heirs who were able to secure the main masses for science and the meteorite community.

April 15, 2009: A new fine-grained, olivine-phyric shergottite has just been approved by the MetSoc:

Northwest Africa 2990 - o-SHE - TKW 363g

An abstract on NWA 2990 has been published by Ted Bunch, Anthony Irving et al at the 40th LPSC in March 2009, entitled Petrology and Composition of Northwest Africa 2990: A new type of fine-grained, enriched, olivine-phyric shergottite. This is an unusual martian rock as most other olivine-bearing shergottites are much less evolved. Besides that, NWA 2990 is a very fresh rock, partially covered by jet-black fusion crust. >> older archive entries >>