Aldama (a), IIIAB

Meteoritical Bulletin entry for Aldama (a). This iron’s medium-octahedral structure has been partly recrystallized by natural or artificial heating, followed by rapid …

Bear Creek, IIIAB

Bear Creek is a historic American iron that’s pretty hard to come by.  We try not to buy slices or part-slices in …

Bitburg, IAB

Bitburg is one of those old, strange stories you read about in meteorite books.  A 1.5 ton iron was found in the …

Boxhole, IIIAB

The Boxhole meteorite crater is ~170 meters in diameter, and is a very well-preserved impact, supposedly dating to only around 5,500 years …

Buffalo Gap, IAB-ungrouped

We wrote the Meteoritical Bulletin write-up for this iron; I can’t think of anything else to add. In short, it’s similar to …

Bur-Abor, IIIAB

Bur-Abor is a special one for us.  Some ten or fifteen years ago, we emailed Eric Twelker about a few Bur-Abor specimens …

Burns, IIIAB

The recovery of Burns is described in its Meteoritical Bulletin write-up: The recovery of the meteorite was described in much greater detail …

Camp Wood, IIIAB

I don’t have much to add to the Bulletin description of this iron. As of 2016, Camp Wood is the largest iron …

Canyon Diablo, IAB-MG

Meteor Crater is one of the most famous impact craters on Earth.  Between 25,000 and 50,000 years ago, an 80 – 120 …

Cape York, IIIAB

Cape York is one of the largest known meteorites, with a very colorful history.  The first reports in literature emerged in the …

Chinga, Ungrouped

From Grady’s Catalogue of Meteorites (2000): Buchwald’s Handbook of Iron Meteorites contains a description of the find: Roy A. Gallant further described …

Deport, IAB-sLL

There’s not much online about this Texan find; the bulletin contains scant information, and I couldn’t find any papers describing the discovery. …

El Burro, IIAB

The El Burro meteorite is a historic find from a very remote area of Coahuila, Mexico.  The area is still almost completely …

Gibeon, IVA

~45 kilograms, individual with hole.  ‘The Man in the Moon.’ ~51 kilogram oriented Gibeon with spotty fusion crust and flow-lines.  Photos taken …

Gove, Relict Iron

This mostly oxidized iron meteorite was found in a Cenozoic bauxite deposit during mining at the Nabalco Bauxite Mine in 1966.  It …

Henbury, IIIAB

The meteorite craters at Henbury, Central Australia, by Arthur Richard Alderman, 1932. 27 grams, Ward’s Natural Science Establishment label. ~3 kilograms of …

Kingston, Ungrouped

Kingston is a unique iron meteorite, without any close chemical relatives.  It appears to be a magmatic iron, and may be the …

Mesa La Caguama, IAB-MG

This “extremely heavy rock” was found by Francisco Arce Arce in 1971. It was discovered in Baja California along a burro trail …

Morasko, IAB-MG

There is far more to say about Morasko than I can include here.  In brief, the fall occurred between 5,000 and 5,500 …

Mount Dooling, IC

The first mass of Mount Dooling was recovered in 1909; it weighed 31.3 kilograms.  I wasn’t able to track down Simpson’s 1911 …

Northwest Africa 176, Ungrouped

Northwest Africa 176 is an unusual ungrouped ~iron meteorite that appears to be more closely related to carbonaceous chondrites than to most …

The irons of Ziz, IAB

Ziz, otherwise known as Northwest Africa 854, is a beautifully fresh iron meteorite from Algeria. It is chemically similar to Canyon Diablo, …

Taza, Ungrouped Iron

Meteoritical Bulletin entry for Taza. Long story short, it’s an ungrouped iron with a germanium content an order of magnitude or so …

Tafrawet, IIIAB

I’ve been told that Tafrawet was a stunning 32 kilogram iron.  The 3 kilogram end-cut pictured below certainly suggests as much.  Thick …

Tata, IIIAB

Tata, otherwise known as NWA 1430, consisted of a single 113 kilogram iron meteorite that was, honestly, pretty ugly.  It had been …

NWA 3202, IIAB

This hexahedrite isn’t too unusual, but it is pretty. And it’s fairly fresh; it has a partial heat-altered zone, contrary to the …

NWA 3204, IAB-sHL-anomalous

NWA 3204 is a pretty plessitic octahedrite with a fun shape; we initially thought that it might be a man-made artifact.  Its …

NWA 3205, IAB-ungrouped

This iron turned out to be compositionally unusual, with a very high iridium content.  The Meteoritical Bulletin says a bit more:

NWA 3206, IAB-sLH

This 176 gram disk-shaped iron is chemically a little odd and is structurally unique.  It has a great microscopic pattern, but there’s …

NWA 3208, IIIAB

This iron is a highly shocked IIIAB — so shocked that its Thomson structure is almost completely erased.  But, while preparing the …

NWA 7787, Iron

This 203 gram iron meteorite is one of the freshest and most beautiful to come out of Northwest Africa.  It is unclassified …

NWA 8154, Ungrouped Iron

This is an odd one, with 3-dimensional graphite sprays.  The Meteoritical Bulletin writeup contains a plethora of information: Paired irons include NWA …

NWA 8156, IVA

This is a pretty one to escape the saw; it’s fairly fresh, oriented, and has a fine pattern.  It has a well-defined …

NWA, Medium Octahedrite I

This 1,026 gram iron meteorite came from Said Haddany at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show in 2010.  It appears to be …

NWA, Medium Octahedrite II

This iron appears to be a medium octahedrite, from the pattern visible through stress fractures in the fusion crust.   It came from …

NWA, Hexahedrite

This is an oriented heat-shield with a few rhabdites visible on its surface (see last photo, center).  So, it’s a IIAB, hexahedrite.  …

NWA, Oriented Iron

This 267.5 gram heat-shield came from Aras Jonikas.  When I first saw photos, it looked so smooth and round that I thought …

NWA, Unclassified ‘Bullet’

This is a beautiful unclassified iron from Northwest Africa.  It is highly oriented, with a blunt, rounded nose, several overlapping lips, and …

Odessa, IAB

64,000 years ago, a massive piece of nickel-iron entered the atmosphere over what is now Northwest Texas.  It was a bad day …

Orange River (iron), IIIAB

A fresh, ~150 kilogram iron meteorite was found some time prior to 1856, by a farmer in the Orange River district of …

Saint Augustine, IID

I don’t have much to add to the Meteoritical Bulletin write-up for this unusual iron. Here’s an image of the 21 kilogram …

São Julião de Moreira, IIAB

This rare Portuguese iron was discovered in 1883, and was thoroughly distributed, with much of the material being lost.  In the Handbook …

Sikhote-Alin, IIAB

The single largest meteorite fall in modern history occurred on February 12th, 1947, at ~10:38 am local time.  In Primorsky Krai, a …

Tamarugal, IIIAB

Tamarugal was discovered in Chile in 1903.  It is one of a handful of ‘ancient’ meteorites, with a terrestrial age of approximately …

Tishomingo, Ungrouped Iron

The Tishomingo meteorite is a Ni-rich ataxite that displays a unique, almost microscopic structure.  When found, it consisted of a massive 260 …

Toluca, IAB-sLL

A comprehensive description of the history and discovery of Toluca can be found in Farrington’s 1915 Catalog of North American Meteorites.  It …

Trenton, IIIAB

Trenton is a historic American iron first discovered in the 1850s in Wisconsin.  Masses of Trenton were initially known simply as the …

Tulia (iron), Unclassified

Here’s an odd one!  This meteorite is listed in the bulletin as an unclassified iron, and it’s easy to see why: it’s …

Uasara, IIAB

Meteoritical Bulletin entry for Uasara. I have only a few things to add to the above description; Sierra Gorda and Negrillos are …

Udei Station, IAB-ungrouped

This iron is a witnessed fall from 1927, and it’s an odd meteorite chock full of interesting inclusions.  This particular specimen exhibits …