I want to thank Jim Strope for the loan of this
material.
http://www.catchafallingstar.com
It must be his way of supporting the arts or he is
just a nice guy. From the time I first expressed an
interest in two planetary meteorite thin sections of
his, it was three days till they were at my house.
Just a loan (it was hard to send them back),
building an extensive thin section collection can
get expensive quick.
This set of images was taken in cross polarized
light with the addition of a 1/4 wave retardation
filter at a magnification of 160X.
The description was taken from Jim's site (with
permission).
Specimens of the Moon, especially lunar meteorites,
are the rarest substances on Earth. The total amount
of lunar meteorite material known to exist weighs
less than 50 pounds. There are less than 50 lunar
meteorites, 15 of which will never be available to
the public as they are held, by treaty, in the
possession of the countries involved in the program
to recover meteorites in Antarctica.
Of all recovered lunar meteorites, North West Africa
482 is the freshest ever found and the most pristine
oriented lunar meteorite ever found. Research has
determined that the classification is crystalline
impact-melt breccia with lunar highland affinities,
making NWA 482 comparable to lunar samples brought
back by Apollo 15. NWA 482 has been compared to
the Genesis Rock returned by that mission because of
the high concentration of anorthosite contained in
the meteorite. ( Genesis Rock Image) The Genesis
rock was named as such because of it's importance in
determining the origin of the Moon's outer crust.
Anorthositic rocks are formed deep within the Moon,
early in its history. Apollo 15's Genesis Rock is a
piece of nearly pristine anorthosite.
It has glassy and vesicular melt veins and melt
pockets indicate shock subsequent to compaction by
an impact event.... e.g. an impact on the moon
projected this meteorite free of the gravitational
pull of the moon into space. Millions of years
later, it entered Earth's atmosphere where it
eventually fell in the Western Sahara desert. The
age is approximately 4.5 billion years old. It is
the only lunar meteorite in private hands with an
off-white matrix. The other specimens have a dark
Gray to black matrix and are not nearly as visually
appealing. NWA 482 has been examined and classified
by UCLA's A. Rubin and P. Warren as well as D. Kring
and I. Duabar of The University of Arizona.
NWA 482 also has other unique properties which make
it stand head and shoulders above other Lunar
samples, including the belief that it originated
from the DARK SIDE OF THE MOON !!! The far side of
the moon looks much different than the side we see
here from earth. A NASA photo of a section of the
far side shows in detail that it is much more
heavily cratered. Based on terrestrial age and
location, lithology, and chemistry, NWA 482 is
unique among all other known lunar meteorites.
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