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Read the entire report yourself here:
http://tinyurl.com/4whwkg

It was ellipsoidal in shape, with a maximum circumference of about 40 cm, and composed of angular fragments of a milky- white material set in a pale grey, sometimes glassy, matrix.

The white fragments are of enstatite, and generally about 0.5 cm across though a few are much larger, up to 4 cm across. Also set in the microcrystalline matrix are rounded fragments of blackish, glassy material, up to 0.5 cm across, many of which are disordered enstatites but some are shock-blackened olivines.

Like most other aubrites, Mayo Belwa is a breccia, but it differs in having a number of irregular and sometimes interconnecting vuggy cavities, generally about t cm across, and extending inwards from the surface for a centimetre or so.

The interior surfaces of these vugs are coated with white, sugary enstatite and are in part formed of 'bundles' of clear acicular diopside crystals with a coating of enstatite.

Projecting from the walls of the rugs are numerous acicular crystals up to 3 mm long and approximately 20/~m in cross-section; some have been identified as a fluor-amphibole by X-ray methods.

When the stone was shocked, irregular distribution of volatiles resulted in high F concentrations to form the vugs.

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Possibly the meteorite was formed under significant confining pressure some distance below the surface of its parent body. Rapid transport towards the surface, or disintegration of this body may have stimulated the release of the volatile fraction, which then formed the vugs.

Whatever the sequence of shock events that produced the textures seen in Mayo Belwa, they must have terminated immediately prior to vug formation since the open vugs containing fine amphibole fibres would rapidly be destroyed by shock.

The areas now occupied by feldspar may once have been vugs with a feldspathic lining and subsequent shock caused these to collapse and the filling material to recrystallize during slow cooling or annealing.

Certainly the shock history of this meteorite is complex and an electron-microscope study of the structures of the component minerals should be enlightening.

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…the aubrites, whose chemical composition has led to speculation that they came from the innermost asteroid belt, or possibly even the planet Mercury.

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FURTHER EVIDENCE FOR CHONDRULE PRE-EXPOSURE TO COSMIC RAYS IN THE SOLAR NEBULA.

Conclusion:
For Bjurbole, Bowesmont, Kress, and St. Germain the chondrules show a pre-exposure that is in the present study not outside experimental uncertainty.

A pre- exposure to cosmic rays of the chondrules not necessarily means that they are older in the sense of an earlier crystallization than the matrix material. In the model suggested by our results chondrules were pre-exposured in the solar nebula to cosmic rays for about one million years before they were incorporated into asteroidal material.

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http://tinyurl.com/4q9aw8
The biggest fragment produced an impact crater in the frozen ground. The crater was 6 metres deep and 2 metres wide. It was located a few hundred metres from the nearest habitation. The impact raised a mushroom-shaped cloud of dust over 50 metres high.

http://tinyurl.com/4m2o9s
The largest fragment of the Jilin stony meteorite was recovered from the bottom of its impact crater after major excavations.

http://tinyurl.com/4byx9w
Scientists examining the main mass of Jilin.

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The first stamp shows three meteorites shooting towards the globe, on which the Euroasian Continent is highlighted. Set against the unmistakable backdrop of Jilin City's Songhua River and Jilin Bridge, the sheen and hue of sparks given off by the meteorites as they penetrate the aerosphere is in brilliant detail. http://tinyurl.com/4n9s8h

The second stamp focuses on the meteorite distribution area. The map of Jilin City and the time of the fall in the background, a light blue oval indicates the point at which the meteor exploded, and the area over which the meteorites scattered on landing. http://tinyurl.com/4an27b

The third stamp shows the crater left by Jilin Meteorite No.1, and signifies that it is the world largest meteorite. The artist's skillful use of shading gives it a 3-D image, indicating in detail its exact shape. http://tinyurl.com/3qf328

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Observations with the naked eye and a microscope revealed that there are many fissures in the Jilin meteorite. They may be divided into two kinds; one is filled with dark material and the other is not. The former includes shear fissure and tension fissure.

The latter is fresh. Conjugate shear fissures, filled with dark material, are widely spread in the Jilin meteorite. The morphological characteristics are similar to those of the shear joints in the terrestrial rocks. Shear fissures are not generated by the force of impact but by the tectonism.

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http://tinyurl.com/3f3xme

Introduction: Eucrites are basaltic meteorites of the howardite-eucrite-diogenite (HED) suite that originated on a differentiated asteroid, possibly 4 Vesta.

Basaltic eucrites are divided into three subgroups based on composition: main group, Stannern-trend, and Nuevo Laredo-trend. The main group and Nuevo Laredo-trend define a sequence formed by fractional crystallization of pigeonite and plagioclase from primitive parent melts.

The Stannern-trend cannot be explained this way, but may rather represent a partial-melt sequence of their parent body in a matrix of fragmental mineral grains. We found two pyroxene types that can be distinguished optically. Some lithic clasts contain pyroxenes with parallel augite lamellae, sharp extinction, and high birefrin- gence, while the others have pyroxenes with blebby augite, undulatory extinction, and low birefringence. Contacts between these pyroxene types in the breccia are sharp.

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The Stannern trend eucrites: Contamination of main group eucritic magmas by crustal partial melts

Abstract
We report on the petrology of a new eucrite belonging to the Stannern trend and discuss the origin of this trend. The eucrite Northwest Africa 4523 (NWA 4523) is an equilibrated eucrite consisting of dark clasts embedded in a fine-grained crystallized matrix. Two types of clasts have been observed: medium-grained ophitic/subophitic clasts, and very fine-grained clasts.

Despite textural differences, the clasts display the same mineralogy, in particular the same kind of pyroxenes with pigeonitic cores containing sparse exsolution lamellae, and augitic rims, zoned plagioclases and the occurrence of K-feldspar. The major and trace element abundances of a large medium-grained clast are very similar to Stannern or Bouvante.

The Stannern trend eucrites are characterized by high incompatible trace element abundances. Their trace element patterns normalized to a representative Main Group eucrite, exhibit significant Eu, Sr and Be negative anomalies. In this paper, we show that contamination of Main Group eucritic magmas by melts derived by partial melting of the asteroid’s crust can successfully explain both the high incompatible trace elements concentrations and the distinctive Eu, Sr, Be anomalies shown by the Stannern trend eucrites.

This model is in agreement with the view that Stannern and some Main Group-Nuevo Laredo trend eucrites have been contemporaneously erupted, and with the probable assumption that Stannern trend eucrites formed rather late in the history of the 4-Vesta’s crust.

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FUNERAL CORTEGE IS CRAZED BY METEOR

DENVER, Aug. 6. – Hundreds of curious persons have been viewing, at the Colorado State Museum, here, a huge meteor that fell recently near Elwell, Colorado, creating great excitement in the surrounding countryside.

The portion of the meteor on exhibition here weighs twenty pounds and in size and shape resembles a man's head. The meteor thundered out of the sky in midafternoon, routed participants in a baseball game, narrowly missing a funeral procession and buried itself in the ground near the entrance of the church from which the funeral cortege was passing.

In falling, the meteor made a trail of gray-blue smoke and as it proceeded downward sounded like a machine gun being fired at a distance. The sky traveler appeared high in the heavens directly over a field in which a baseball game was in progress. The players were first attracted by the noise of the falling body and scattered for shelter as it shot toward earth. Whizzing through the air the meteor swerved and embedded itself two feet in the ground near the church.

A score of men secured shovels and picks and dug the aerial speeder from its resting place. Several days later a second section of the meteor was discovered embedded five feet in the earth on a ranch near Elwell. This piece weighed fifty-four pounds.

A third segment was found on a farm six miles south of Elwell, shortly after the discovery of the fifty-four pound section. The third section of the celestial body weighed only seven pounds.

The first meteor, weighing twenty pounds, was purchased by the Colorado State Museum and is on exhibition here.

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At 4:20 in the afternoon of July 6, 1924, people were gathering for a funeral service in front of a church near the town of Elwell, two miles west of Johnstown, Colorado.

Out of nowhere, a sudden sound, likened to that of an airplane engine, filled the quiet day and interrupted the service. A trail of smoke was emblazoned across the blue sky followed by a series of loud explosions.

At ground level, “thuds” and “thumps” were heard and a black stone, falling from the sky, stuck near the doors of the church where the service was being held. Thirty minutes after the service, the church undertaker removed a 15-pound stone from the soil at a depth of 20 inches.

{Here is a recent picture of the church: http://tinyurl.com/4c4az9 }

Following the sight and sounds of the fireball, 27 fusion-crusted stones were recovered, with a total weight of 88.9 pounds, the largest weighing 51.8 pounds. Most of the meteorites embedded themselves in the soft soil, however a few landed within feet of farm workers out in their fields.

The 51.8-pound stone buried itself 5-feet-deep while 5 miles to the south, a 7-pound stone came to rest on the surface. Like other meteorite falls, the fragments were distributed in an ellipse, however the distribution pattern of the Johnstown meteorites was unusual. Instead of the largest stones falling at the far end of the ellipse, they fell out first, creating an inverted strewn field.

The smaller stones rained down on rooftops in the town of Mead, located 10 miles away from the spot where the first stones fell. Local residents reportedly picked up many pea- to walnut-sized stones.

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"The Paragould meteorite had profound effects on our lives. I have never ceased to regret parting with it, but I had paid a price too high, and was forced to give up either the specimen or my dream of making meteorites a new vocation. And Paragould, with the $2,000 profit it brought, was the way to my dream."

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In spite of the early hour, the light and sound that accompanied the fall were seen or heard by many people over vast areas, comprising parts of southern Illinois (East St. Louis), southeastern Missouri (Poplar Bluff), eastern Kansas (Burlingame), western Tennessee (Ripley), and northeastern Arkansas (Beach Grove, Gainsville, and Paragould).

The luminous phenomena that appeared in the northeast were said by some witnesses to resemble a ball of fire with a glowing tail. The detonations, followed by a rumble that rolled away toward the southeast [northeast], were compared to an "explosion like a sharp peal of thunder," or "a blast of dynamite" that jarred houses like an earthquake and stampeded livestock.

The following quotation (Wylie, 1930b, pp. 387-388) of the description of the phenomena as related by one of the observers may be accepted as a representative one:

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"Near Gainsville, Arkansas, Marvin Penny, a farmer, was dressing when he heard the crash of an explosion, seemingly right over his house. He was outdoors at once and heard a noise like thunder rolling, as it seemed, to both northeast and southwest, the roll to the northeast being more pronounced and lasting longer. He saw, in spite of the moonlight, a trail 'like the milkmaid's path' extending from about 30° altitude in the southwest through overhead to near the horizon in the northeast. The trail was visible for perhaps five minutes in the northeast, where it could be seen the longest. The explosion stampeded Mr. Penny's stock."

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A farmer, living a few miles southwest of Finch, noticed a big hole near his home on land belonging to his neighbor, J. H. Fletcher. Scattering clods of dirt were thrown about the hole but chiefly to the south, not northeast, as in the case of the smaller stone.

These clods were plentiful at a distance of thirty feet, although some were thrown as far away as 150 feet. The hole measured eight feet in depth, the bottom deviating about a foot to the southwest. This deviation indicates that the meteor was falling nearly to the south, the direction of its travel.

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Diamonds Found In Meteorite

WASHINGTON (UPI) - Another diamond strike has been made in matter from space. The diamonds apparently were formed 10 to 30 million years ago when a couple of meteoroids collided with terrific impact millions of miles from the earth.

The latest discovery of diamonds in a meteorite, the fourth in history to be confirmed, was reported in the technical journal "Science" by Dr. Michael E. Lipschutz. Lipschutz is an astrochemist on duty with Goddard Space Flight Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The study of meteorites is considered by NASA to be an important phase of space exploration.

These bits or chunks of matter, which have broken their orbital moorings deep in the solar system and crash-landed on earth, have been called "space probes in reverse."

No Alarm Caused
Lipschutz' discoveries will not alarm the diamond miners of South Africa or the diamond merchants of Amsterdam. Diamonds from space are extremely rare and are not of gem quality. They are tiny, they are black - as all meteoritic diamonds appear to be, and they are about half graphite. Graphite is a soft form of carbon which transforms into hard diamond under great pressure and heat.

The recently discovered diamonds were in minute samples of the Dyalphur meteorite which was seen to fall in India on May 8, 1872. It weighed about 10 ounces. Most of it is in the British Museum, but the Chicago National History Museum obtained a bit of it weighing about one-seventh of an ounce.

The Chicago institution permitted Lipschutz to remove samples totaling about one twenty-eight thousands of an ounce. The diamond crystals in his samples were so small that it would take hundreds of millions of them to measure an inch.

Uses X-Ray Analysis
The observe them at all Lipschutz had to use an X-ray analysis technique. This modern method also used to confirm the presence of diamonds in the other three meteorites.

The other diamond-bearing meteorites are the Novo Urei, 4.5 pounds, which fell in Russia in 1886; the Goalpara, six pounds, which was found in the jewel collection of the Rajah of Goalpara in 1858; and the gigantic Canyon Diablo meteorite of Arizona. The Canyon Diablo weighed about half a million tons when it hit the earth in the dim past. The crater it dug is about three-fourths of a mile wide and 560 feet deep.

Lipschutz and Prof. Edward Anders of the University of Chicago reported in a paper last year that diamonds were formed in the great Arizona meteorite by shock transformed of graphite when it crashed. These diamonds were disclosed by X-ray analysis in 1939. The largest meteorite diamonds are about the size of the tip of a sharp lead pencil. The smallest are invisible.

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http://tinyurl.com/4zfqeo

The reason for the low levels of zinc in Goalpara olivines is not yet understood. The low Zn contents of the olivines explains the low bulk zinc content of 84 ppm compared to the bulk zinc content of 266 ppm for Novo-Urei. Kenna, Novo-Urei and Dyalpur are weakly to moderately shocked samples, whereas Goalpara and Dar al Gani 084 experienced higher shock pressures and temperatures, as indicated by petrographic studies.

Bulk zinc contents of the more heavily shocked ureilites are lower compared to the weakly shocked ureilites. Therefore we assume that Zn might have been lost from the olivines by reheating caused by impact processes. Further studies should reveal if abundances of the volatile element zinc in meteoritic silicates can serve as an indicator for shock processes and the related thermal history of meteorites.

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However, both the origin and the formation history of the ureilites remain enigmatic. Their mineral and oxygen isotopic compositions suggest that they formed as residues from partial melting, and therefore represent primitive achondrites that probably formed on several parent bodies.

On the other hand, rare-element patterns and other chemical characteristics indicate that ureilites are highly fractionated igneous rocks that formed in different regions of the same parent body; probably a moderately differentiated C-type asteroid that was disrupted by an impact event and then rapidly cooled. An impact history would also explain the occurrence of high-pressure minerals such as diamond and londsdaleite that are formed by intense shock metamorphism.

Even this theory is not without its problems though. Recently, a new ureilite from the Libyan Sahara named DaG 868 was found to contain diamonds, but paradoxically, appears to be nearly unshocked. Other ureilites, like our new NWA 766, contain exotic minerals like chromium-spinel, chromium-rich garnet, and associated glasses. These unusual specimens present more questions than they answer regarding the ureilite puzzle. Further research is needed to unravel the mystery of the origin of the ureilites and the complex history of their parent body.

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