|Northwest Africa 3163|
|Basic information||Name: Northwest Africa 3163|
This is an OFFICIAL meteorite name.
Abbreviation: NWA 3163
Observed fall: No
Year found: 2001
Country: (Northwest Africa)
Mass: 1634 g
This is 1 of 55 approved meteorites classified as Lunar. [show all]
Search for other: Lunar meteorites
|Comments:||Approved 3 Feb 2006|
Writeup from MB 90:
Northwest Africa 3163
Mauritania or Algeria
Find: August 2005
Achondrite (lunar, feldspathic granulitic impactite)
History: In August 2005, G. Hupé purchased a 1634 g stone from a Moroccan dealer in Ouarzazate.
Petrography and Geochemistry: (A. Irving and S. Kuehner, UWS) The exterior is almost completely coated by a thin, transparent, greenish fusion crust. The pale gray interior has multiple shock fractures (with very minor calcite coatings) and some thin glass veins. Poikiloblastic recrystallized breccia, with larger grains of plagioclase (~70 vol%) enclosing much smaller grains (less than 100 µm across) of pyroxenes (~20 vol%), olivine (~10 vol%), and accessory Ti-chromite (Cr/(Cr+Al) = 0.714–0.736; Mg/(Mg+Fe) = 0.121– 0.143; TiO2 = 9.1–18.4 wt%), ilmenite, troilite, and metal (Ni = ~15 wt%). Anorthitic plagioclase (An97.4–98.2) has been converted by shock almost entirely to maskelynite (although domains of birefringent, less-shocked feldspar remain). Pigeonitic pyroxene grains have very fine-scale exsolution lamellae of augite (Fs14.5–16.1Wo40.2–40.5; FeO/MnO = 41.7– 43.8) within orthopyroxene (Fs32.0–33.9Wo4.4–5.8; FeO/MnO = 55.5–61.2). Olivine (Fa38.0–40.9; FeO/MnO = 91.7–110).
Classification: Achondrite (lunar, feldspathic granulitic impactite).
Specimens: A 20.1 g type specimen and one polished thin section are on deposit at UWS. GHupé holds the main mass.
UWS: University of Washington, Department of Earth and Space Sciences, 70 Johnson Hall, Seattle, WA 98195, United States (institutional address; updated 15 Jan 2012)
GHupé: Gregory M. Hupé, 9003 Placid Lakes Blvd., Lake Placid, FL 33852, United States; Website (private address)
|References:||Published in Meteoritical Bulletin, no. 90, MAPS 41, 1383-1418 (2006)|
This is 1 of 4784 approved meteorites from (Northwest Africa) (plus 2276 unapproved names)
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