* Astronomy

The Los Angeles Meteorite

Location: Los Angeles County, California (original find location unknown)
Found: October 30, 1999 (Recognised)
Type: Shergottite (SNC) Martian basalt

Two stones, weighing 452.6 g and 245.4 g respectively, were found by Bob Verish in his back yard while he was cleaning out a box of rocks that was part of his rock collection. The specimens may have been collected ~20 years ago in the Mojave Desert. Classification and mineralogy (A. Rubin, P. Warren and J. Greenwood, UCLA): a basalt with a texture closely resembling that of the QUE 94201; plagioclase laths, 43.6 vol%, An41Or4 to An58Or1, have been shocked to maskelynite; Ca-pyroxene, 37.7 vol%, ranges from Fs45Wo13 to Fs45Wo37 to Fs72Wo24; other mineral modes, 4.9 vol% silica, 4.2 vol% fayalite, 2.4 vol% K-rich felsic glass, 3.5 vol% titanomagnetite, 2.7 vol% Ca phosphate (including whitlockite and chlorapatite), 0.7 vol% pyrrhotite, and 0.2 vol% ilmenite; contains a higher proportion of plagioclase than Shergotty or Zagami, and has pyroxene that is moderately more ferroan than that in QUE 94201. Specimens: main masses with finder; 30 g, UCLA. [Houston LPSC references to be added later]

Source: Meteoritical Bulletin 84

Los Angeles - the city of Angels. Never a more appropriate name for an object which has travelled so far, for so long a time, and which finally descended from heaven in a blinding flash of light and thunder.
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