Nevada Meteorite Picture of the Day

Discover the Solar System - right here in the Nevada desert! Each day a different image or photograph of a NEVADA meteorite will be featured, along with a brief explanation written by a meteorite-recovery expert.

2003 July 21
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Name of Nevada Meteorite: Bluewing 001 (AEUC) - Actually, this is the 34th meteorite find made at Bluewing Flat, Nevada.
Credit: Image by Paul Gessler, taken May 2001.

Explanation:
The following is from The Meteoritical Bulletin, No. 85, 2001 September :

Bluewing 001
40º14.965' N, 118º56.210' W
Pershing County, Nevada, USA
Found 2000 June 14
Achondrite (eucrite)
A 6.1 g stone was found by Paul Gessler while he was searching for meteorites on Bluewing Flat.
Classification and analysis (P. Warren, UCLA): subophitic texture; pyroxene grains are mostly <1 mm and zoned from En67.5 Wo4.8 to En6 Wo25 to En3 Wo15 ; plagioclase is zoned from An89 to An75 , average An82 ; minor and trace phases include silica, ilmenite, phosphate, fayalite, K-feldspar, metal and troilite; bulk composition is similar to Stannern and Bouvante. See also Warren and Gessler (2001).
Specimens: type specimen, 1.15 g, UCLA; main mass, Gessler.

References:
Lunar and Planetary Science XXXII (2001) "Bluewing 001: A new eucrite with extremely unequilibrated pyroxene, cognate (?) eucritic xenoliths, and Stannern-like geochemistry" (1970.pdf).
Lunar and Planetary Science XXXII (2001) "Eucrite Bluewing 001: A Stannern-like bulk composition and its linkage with other unequilibrated HED basalts" (2114.pdf).
Meteoritics & Planetary Science 36, A293-A322 (2001) The Meteoritical Bulletin, No. 85, 2001 September (mb85.pdf).
65th Annual Meteoritical Society Meeting (2002) 5263.pdf

(no scale)

Tomorrow's picture: More Bluewing

Authors & editors: Robert Verish (M-Recovery)