Description
DISCOVERY OF THE ALLAN HILLS A76009, ANTARCTICA, STONY METEORITE (ALH 76009)
Name: ALLAN HILLS A76009
Place of find: West of Allan Nunatak on the edge of the Polar plateau, Victoria Land, Antarctica.
76°42’26″S., 159°07’43″E.
Date of find: January 20, 1977.
Class and type: Stone. Olivine-hypersthene chondrite (L6). Olivine Fa24.1.
Number of individual
specimens: 33
Total weight: 407 kg
Circumstances of find: Found during a helicopter search over an area of bare ice during the 1976-1977 season of the U.S.-Japan Joint Antarctic Expedition.
Source: K. Yanai, 1978. First meteorites found in Victoria Land, Antarctica, December 1976 and January 1977. Mem. Nat. Inst. Polar Res., Special Issue No. 8, 51-69.
Note: Also known as Allan Nunatak No. 9 and as Allan Hills No. 9. Allan Hills A76009 is the name approved by the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society.
See also: W.A. Cassidy, E. Olsen and K. Yanai, 1977. Antarctica: a deep-freeze storehouse for meteorites. Science 198, 727-731, where the coordinates of the find site are given as 76°43’14″S., 159°17’39″E., and E. Olsen etal., 1978. Eleven new meteorites from Antarctica, 1976-1977. Meteoritics 13, 209-225.
[From Antarctic Meteorite Newsletter 4(1):]
Sample No.: ALHA76009
Location: Allan Hills
Field No.:
Weight (gms): 3950.5
Meteorite Type: L6 Chondrite
Physical Description:
Stone possesses remnants of a black fusion crust (~1 mm thick). Much of the crust is fractured in a polygonal pattern. The specimen is fractured. One large, severely weathered fracture runs through the meteorite. Dimensions: 18 x 13 x 7.6 cm.
Petrographic Description:
This meteorite described as Allan Hills #9 in Olsen et al., 1978.