Northwest Africa 4932 Lunar Meteorite

Complete mass of NWA 4932.
Complete mass of NWA 4932.


Official Meteoritical Bulletin entry for Northwest Africa 4932:

Northwest Africa 4932
     Morocco
     Find: October 2007
     Achondrite (lunar, feldsparthic breccia)

History: Purchased by Greg Hupé from a Moroccan dealer in Tagounite, Morocco, in October 2007.
Physical characteristics: A single, light colored 93.3 g stone. The interior is light gray, mostly very fine grained with a few white clasts (Fig. 2), and prominent but sparsely distributed metal grains (surrounded by hydroxide staining).
Petrography: (A. Irving and S. Kuehner, UWS) Breccia composed of small gabbroic to troctolitic clasts (granular aggregates of rounded olivine grains and calcic plagioclase enclosed within low-Ca pyroxene with accessory Ti-chromite and troilite), sparse large grains of kamacite (up to 1 mm, partly altered to iron hydroxide) and rare large grains of silica polymorph in a dominant, very fine grained matrix of the same phases. There are secondary (terrestrial) veinlets and small patches of calcite.
Geochemistry: Low-Ca pyroxene (Fs22.3–22.8Wo5.9–5.3, FeO/ MnO = 51.9–53.0; Fs20.8–36.1Wo7.4–12.0, FeO/MnO = 56.5– 58.3), olivine (Fa27.2–36.9, FeO/MnO = 87.7–96.3), plagioclase (An94.9–96.4Or0.3–0.1). Bulk composition (R. Korotev, WUSL): FeO 8.5 wt%, Sc 19.2 ppm, Sm 1.1 ppm, Th 0.6 ppm, Ni 450 ppm. section are on deposit at UWS. The main mass is held by Mr. G. Hupé


Scientific abstracts and news regarding NWA 4932:

Korotev R. L, Zeigler R. A., Jolliff B. L., Irving A. J., and Bunch T. E.
(2009) Compositional and lithological diversity among brecciated lunar meteorites of intermediate iron composition.
Meteoritics & Planetary Science 44, 1287-1322.
epsc.wustl.edu/%7Erlk/papers/korotev_et_al_2009_m&ps_intermediate_iron.pdf

Korotev R. L., Irving A. J., and Bunch T. E.
(2008) Keeping up with the lunar meteorites – 2008 (abstract). In
Lunar and Planetary Science XXXIX, abstract no. 1209,
39th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston.
www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2008/pdf/1209.pdf

24.5 gram main mass of NWA 4932.
24.5 gram main mass of NWA 4932.
  Thin Section image in Plane Polarized Light (image measures 7mm wide).
Thin Section image in Plane Polarized Light (image measures 7mm wide).

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