Title: Schenectady Meteorite Authors: Fleischer, R. L.; Lifshin, E.; Price, P. B.; Woods, R. T.; Carter, R. W.; Fireman, E. L.
The fourth meteorite recovery in the United States during the past decade (and only the second since 1961) occurred on 14 April 1968, in Glenville, New York (a suburb of Schenectady). The exterior of the single stone of mass 283.3 gm consists primarily of a dull, black fusion crust, plus a fracture surface that was apparently produced by breakup in the atmosphere. Measurements of the densities of cosmic-ray tracks in olivine and pyroxene crystals at four positions in the meteorite, together with our measured cosmic-ray exposure time of 31 million years, are evidence that the specimen came from a depth between 4 and 9 cm in a preatmospheric body of greater than 20-cm radius. The U^4He and the K^40Ar ages, 4.1 x 10^9 and 4.35 x 10^9 years, respectively, indicate that the meteorite underwent very little heating in space.