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Met Name

Met Type

Thin Sections

  L6

TKW 9.5 kg. Observed fall 15 February 2009, McLennan County, Texas, USA.


 

Steve writes:

Like Chelyabinsk, the Ash Creek L6 meteorite (sometimes called West Texas, or West County Texas) also fell on February 15th, but four years earlier (in 2009). Strong sonic booms were heard for 20 to 30 seconds by residents in southern Hill County, along with rumblings described as similar to a jet taking off. Its fireball was witnessed by people from Austin to Ft. Worth and was even captured on video by local News 8 cameraman Eddie Garcia. The meteorite fragmented and showered stones around Ash Creek in the northern corner of McLennan County, even hitting a shed.

Doppler reflectivity measurements from the National Weather Service’s Ft. Worth and Granger stations recorded the bolide’s location at 11:00 AM, and within 48 hours researchers had already arrived to interview several witnesses at the strewn field. The Tucson annual International Gem and Mineral Show was just concluding as news of the fall reached that event, and several meteorite dealers left to recover stones from the fall (we purchased the individual in Photo 1 from E.T. Meteorite’s Patrick Thompson, along with cotton from the field where he found it less than 10 days after it fell). More than three hundred meteorites totaling approximately 11.7 kg were reported: three large masses at 1.7 kg, 1.67 kg, and 1.5 kg, with the rest being less than 300 grams each.

Our 10.2 gram, 25 x 19 x 14 mm stone – like more than three-quarters of the meteorites from that fall – is mostly fusion-crusted, as is Photo 2’s thin section shown in white light and xpol in Photo 3 (I find it interesting that the breccia obvious in the white light image was not obvious in xpol). Photo 4 offers a slightly more magnified view of the area around one of the better examples of fusion crust. Photo 5 shows another area with fusion crust and some interesting chondrules. Photos 6 and 7 offer more magnified views of other interesting areas.

The zoomable gigapixel image can be found here:

Ash Creek L6 Chondrite Meteorite Thin Section (gigapan.com)

For those that haven’t been on Gigapan before, click on the diagonal areas to the right of the image to go full screen, then use the mouse and its scroll wheel to zoom in and out and pan around.

And to complement Paul’s February 15th Chelyabinsk MPOD, the following links offer gigapixel xpol and white light thin section images of that meteorite as well:

Chelyabinsk, LL5 Chondrite Meteorite Xpol Thin Section (gigapan.com)

Chelyabinsk LL5 Chondrite Meteorite White Light Thin Section (gigapan.com)