Search

On July 15, 2021, a huge fireball was visible over Poland. After the possible strewn field was calculated, the first and so far only sample, with a mass of 350 g, was discovered 18 days after the fireball event. The Antonin meteorite was found August 3, 2021, on the edge of a forest close to a dirt road near Helenow, a small suburb of the city of Mikstat. The rock is an ordinary chondrite breccia and consists of equilibrated and recrystallized lithologies. The boundaries between different fragments are difficult to detect, and the lithologies are of petrologic type 5 and type 4. The rock is moderately shocked (S4) and contains local impact melt areas and thin shock veins. The low‐Ca pyroxene and olivine are equilibrated (Fs20.6 and Fa24.0, respectively), typical of L chondrites. The L chondrite classification is also supported by O isotope data and the results of bulk chemical analysis. The Ti isotope characteristics confirm that Antonin is related to the noncarbonaceous (NC) meteorites. One of the studied thin sections shows an unusual metal–chondrule assemblage, perhaps indicating that the metal in the chondrite is heterogeneously distributed, which is, however, not clearly visible in the element abundances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elmshorn fell April 25, 2023, about 30 km northwest of the city of Hamburg (Germany). Shortly after the fall, 21 pieces were recovered totaling a mass of 4277 g. Elmshorn is a polymict and anomalous H3‐6 chondritic, fragmental breccia. The rock is a mixture of typical H chondrite lithologies and clasts of intermediate H/L (or L, based on magnetic properties) chondrite origin. In some of the 21 pieces, the H chondrite lithologies dominate, while in others the H/L (or L) chondrite components are prevalent. The H/L chondrite assignment of these components is based on the mean composition of their olivines in equilibrated type 4 fragments (~Fa21–22). The physical properties like density (3.34 g cm−3) and magnetic susceptibility (logχ <5.0, with χ in 10−9 m3 kg−1) are typical for L chondrites, which is inconsistent with the oxygen isotope compositions: all eight O isotope analyses from two different fragments clearly fall into the H chondrite field. Thus, the fragments found in the strewn field vary in mineralogy, mineral chemistry, and physical properties but not in O isotope characteristics. The sample most intensively studied belongs to the stones dominated by H chondrite lithologies. The chemical composition and nucleosynthetic Cr and Ti isotope data are typical for ordinary chondrites. The noble gases in Elmshorn represent a mixture between cosmogenic, radiogenic, and primordially trapped noble gases, while a solar wind component can be excluded. Because the chondritic rock of Elmshorn contains (a) H chondrite parent body interior materials (of types 5 and 6), (b) chondrite parent body near‐surface materials (of types 3 and 4), (c) fragments of an H/L chondrite (dominant in many stones), (d) shock‐darkened fragments, and (e) clasts of various types of impact melts but no solar wind‐implanted noble gases, the different components cannot have been part of a parent body regolith. The most straightforward explanation is that the fragmental breccia of Elmshorn represents a reaccreted rock after a catastrophic collision between an H chondrite parent body and another body with H/L (or L) chondrite characteristics but with deviating O isotope values (i.e. that of H chondrites), complete disruption of the bodies, mixing, and reassembly. This is the only straightforward way that the implantation of solar wind gases could have been avoided in this kind of complex breccia. The gas retention ages of about 2.8 Gyr possibly indicate the closure time after the catastrophic collision between H and H/L (or L) chondrite parent bodies, while the cosmic ray exposure age for Elmshorn, which had a preatmospheric radius of 25–40 cm, is ~17–20 Myr. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On February 13, 2023, a huge fireball was visible over Western Europe (fireball event 2023 CX1). After the possible strewn field was calculated, the first of several recovered samples, with a mass of about 100 g, was discovered just 2 days after the fireball event on the ground of the village of Saint‐Pierre‐le‐Viger. Meanwhile, more than 60 samples with a total mass of more than 1 kg were recovered and a piece of one of these is studied here. The fall occurred 220 years after the historic meteorite fall of L'Aigle on April 26, 1803, <120 km south. L'Aigle is the closest meteorite fall to Saint‐Pierre‐le‐Viger and belongs to the same chondrite group. Both meteorites are breccias containing only clasts of high metamorphic degree (type 5 and type 6). Since only 20% of the L chondrites are breccias this coincidence is remarkable. As just mentioned, both samples studied from these rocks in this work are ordinary chondrite breccias and consist of equilibrated and recrystallized lithologies of petrologic type 6. The brecciated texture in L'Aigle, resulting in a remarkable light–dark structure, is more pronounced than the brecciated features in Saint‐Pierre‐le‐Viger, from which also type 5 fragments have been reported. The compositions of low‐Ca pyroxene and olivine grains in Saint‐Pierre‐le‐Viger (Fs21.2 and Fa23.4, respectively) clearly require an L‐group classification. L'Aigle was classified as an L6 breccia in the past, and this has now been confirmed by new data on low‐Ca pyroxene and olivine (Fs20.7 and Fa23.8, respectively). Saint‐Pierre‐le‐Viger contains local thin shock veins, and both meteorites are moderately shocked. Most olivines in the studied samples have planar fractures, but the estimated abundance of mosaicized olivines of 30%–40% among the large grains require a S4 shock classification. Oxygen isotope and bulk chemical data of Saint‐Pierre‐le‐Viger certainly support the L chondrite classification. Bulk spectral data of Saint‐Pierre‐le‐Viger are dominated by silicate minerals, that is, Fe‐bearing low‐Ca pyroxene, olivine, and plagioclase. Isotopic, chemical, and spectral data of the L'Aigle meteorite are shown for comparison and are very similar, providing additional circumstantial evidence of Saint‐Pierre‐le‐Viger's L chondritic nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]