Description
0.754 g slice
Sold in a box with label / signed certificate of authenticity
Sold in a box with label / signed certificate of authenticity
Northwest Africa 11331 (NWA 11331)
(Northwest Africa)
Purchased: 2017 Apr
Classification: Lunar meteorite (feldspathic breccia)
History: Material excavated from a site near Tindouf, Algeria was purchased by Pierre-Marie Pelé in April 2017 from a dealer in Rissani, Morocco.
Physical characteristics: The stones (total weight 318 g) have distinctive reddish-brown, clay-rich exterior coatings. Fresh interiors exhibit whitish clasts in a dark-gray matrix.
Petrography: (A. Irving and S. Kuehner, UWS) Breccia composed of angular mineral clasts of olivine, anorthite, exsolved pigeonite, orthopyroxene, unexsolved pigeonite, augite, chromite and ilmenite, plus sparse glass fragments, in a finer grained partly vesicular matrix.
Geochemistry: Olivine (Fa20.1-53.8, FeO/MnO = 94-109, N = 3), orthopyroxene (Fs30.6Wo3.4, FeO/MnO = 54), low-Ca pyroxene host in exsolved pigeonite (Fs41.6Wo5.5, FeO/MnO = 57), pigeonite (Fs25.4Wo9.8, FeO/MnO = 54), augite (Fs10.0Wo42.9, FeO/MnO = 40), plagioclase (An96.4-96.7Or0.2, N = 2).
Classification: Lunar (feldspathic regolith breccia).
Specimens: 20.07 g in the form of a polished endcut at PSF; remainder with P. Pelé.
This meteorite is part of the NWA 8046 clan with multiple pairings as NWA 10309, 10461, 10609, 10643, 10649, 10756, 10822, 10901, 11029, 11266, 11269, 11303, 11379, 11428, 11460, 11479, 11515, 12691, 12760 and possibly NWA 2425, 11331, 11407, 11421, 11444, 11517, 11532, 11695, 11787, 11789, 11898, 11966, 11968, 12630, 12695, 12966, 13101, 13120, 13390, 13426, 13739, 14340.
