[meteorite-list] NWA978 and El Tigre

From: Bernd Pauli HD <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:54:10 2004
Message-ID: <3C77C734.A13DF2EE_at_lehrer1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>

Bonjour Pierre, hello List,


> 1. I just got on E-bay a slice of NWA978. A beautiful R3, no doubt!

No doubt about that :-)

> However the seller just mentions "classified by UCLA".

That's the p r e s e n t state of affairs! There are so many NWAs that
it will take some time before anyone has the time to study all these in
detail. Only the most exotic ones have a chance of being studied some
time soon.

> Is someone aware of a published account on this rare NWA?

No, instead let me quote from the Meteoritical Bulletin #85:

"Many meteorites lacking first-hand documentation of the find location
are being sold by Moroccan rock and mineral dealers, and by people from
other countries who have collected material in Morocco. These meteorites
are all sold as Moroccan finds, but there are plausible reports that
some
were actually collected in Algeria or Western Sahara. The reliability of
locality information associated with these meteorites is difficult to
assess due to the anonymity of all of the finders and most of the
original sellers. All such meteorites will henceforth be numbered in a
“Northwest Africa” (NWA) series. The Nomenclature Committee considers it
possible that differently numbered specimens are p a i r e d with each
other or with other named meteorites, and some may even be derived from
the same individual object."

"Meteorites from Morocco. Most of these were purchased from Moroccan
dealers. If information was supplied by a dealer about where the speci-
men may have been collected, this is noted under Possible origin. None
of the exact collection locations are known."

> I am wondering about pairing with NWA573. [NWA 753!]

Thus, this is very probable! As for NWA 753, there is a paper that was
published in MAPS:

BISCHOFF A. et al. (2001) Mineralogy, Chemistry, and noble gases of the
unpaired Rumuruti chondrites NWA 753 and NWA 755 (MAPS 36-9, 2001,
A021).

> a fellow collector has got a while ago from a US dealer: El Tigre Mexico
> 1993 Dec. 23 L6. However it is not officially declared, a surprising
> situation for a meteorite fallen 8 years ago. Anyone knows about this
> meteorite? (it looks effectively like a fresh L6)

There is no entry in my database about an "El Tigre" :-(

Best regards,

Bernd
Received on Sat 23 Feb 2002 11:45:41 AM PST