The Dronino meteorite is a

iron meteorite Iron meteorites, also known as siderites, or ferrous meteorites, are a type of meteorite that consist overwhelmingly of an iron–nickel alloy known as meteoric iron that usually consists of two mineral phases: kamacite and taenite. Most iron met ...

that was found in the

Ryazan Oblast Ryazan Oblast ( rus, Рязанская область, r=Ryazanskaya oblast, p=rʲɪˈzanskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

in July 2000. It is classified as an

ataxite Ataxites (from Greek meaning "without structure") are a structural class of iron meteorites with a high nickel content and show no Widmanstätten patterns upon etching. Characteristics Ataxites are composed mainly of meteoric iron, a native metal ...

Mineralogy

The Dronino meteorite is a classified as an

(

). Most of the

meteoric iron Meteoric iron, sometimes meteoritic iron, is a native metal and early-universe protoplanetary-disk remnant found in meteorites and made from the elements iron and nickel, mainly in the form of the mineral phases kamacite and taenite. Meteoric iro ...

kamacite Kamacite is an alloy of iron and nickel, which is found on Earth only in meteorites. According to the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) it is considered a proper nickel-rich variety of the mineral native iron. The proportion iron:ni ...

with minor amounts of

taenite Taenite is a mineral found naturally on Earth mostly in iron meteorites. It is an alloy of iron and nickel, with a chemical formula of and nickel proportions of 20% up to 65%. The name is derived from the Greek ταινία for "band, ribbon" ...

. The kamacite chemistry contains 7.0% Ni and 0.75% Co, whereas the taenite has 26.5% Ni and 0.35% Co (% of total mass). About 10% of the volume of the meteorite are

sulfides Sulfide (British English also sulphide) is an inorganic anion of sulfur with the chemical formula S2− or a compound containing one or more S2− ions. Solutions of sulfide salts are corrosive. ''Sulfide'' also refers to chemical compounds la ...

. Accessory minerals include

chromite Chromite is a crystalline mineral composed primarily of iron(II) oxide and chromium(III) oxide compounds. It can be represented by the chemical formula of FeCr2O4. It is an oxide mineral belonging to the spinel group. The element magnesium can s ...

and an iron-phosphate, which could possibly be graftonite.

Impact

Because there are no historical descriptions of the

impact event An impact event is a collision between astronomical objects causing measurable effects. Impact events have physical consequences and have been found to regularly occur in planetary systems, though the most frequent involve asteroids, comets or me ...

of the Meteorite it has been estimated that the

fall Autumn, also known as fall in American English and Canadian English, is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March ( Southe ...

would have to have occurred before the earliest settlements formed in that region in 1200. From the distribution of the meteorite fragments it has been estimated that the meteorite formed a crater with a diameter of 30 m.

Naming and discovery

The meteorite is named after the village Dronino where it was found. The meteorite was discovered by Oleg Gus’kov in July 2000 on his way home from mushroom collecting near the village of Dronino (). He noticed a rusty piece of iron protruding from the ground. Suspecting it to be a meteorite but unable to exhume it, he returned the next day with a shovel and wheelbarrow. He brought the meteorite to his house, where it lay in his garden for the next two years. In this time the meteorite broke into three pieces. Gus’kov sawed one of the pieces apart upon which he realized that it was definitely a meteorite. After that he alerted different experts of his discovery. In early 2003, a piece was identified as a meteorite in Vernad ( Vernad on Russian Wikipedia). Suspecting that Gus’kov had only found a fragment of a larger meteorite different search parties went to Dronino in summer 2003 and discovered more than 600 fragments with a total mass of about , the largest being .

Mineralogy

Impact

Naming and discovery

References

See also