The Springwater meteorite is a stony-iron
pallasite
The pallasites are a class of stony–iron meteorite.
Structure and composition
It consists of centimetre-sized olivine crystals of peridot quality in an iron-nickel matrix. Coarser metal areas develop Widmanstätten patterns upon etching. Mino ...
, found near Springwater,
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North ...
in 1931.
[Meteoritical Bulletin Database]
/ref> At that time the find consisted of three large masses (, and . Other fragments have been found recently, including a individual in 2009 that is now in the Royal Ontario Museum.CBC news
/ref>
Thirty percent of the meteorite is the iron-rich metallic phases 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 ...
and 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" ...
, with the rest mostly made up of olivine
The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface, but weathers qui ...
. There are minor amounts of other minerals, including several phosphates such as farringtonite () and stanfieldite () and merrillite (a member of the whitlockite
Whitlockite is a mineral, an unusual form of calcium phosphate. Its formula is Ca9(Mg Fe)(PO4)6PO3O H. It is a relatively rare mineral but is found in granitic pegmatites, phosphate rock deposits, guano caves and in chondrite meteorites. It was f ...
group).
See also
* Glossary of meteoritics
This is a glossary of terms used in meteoritics, the science of meteorites.
#
* 2 Pallas – an asteroid from the asteroid belt and one of the likely parent bodies of the CR meteorites.
* 4 Vesta – second-largest asteroid in the asteroid b ...
* Meteorite find
A meteorite find is a meteorite that was found by people, but whose fall was not observed. They may have been on Earth's surface for as many as thousands of years and therefore could have been subject to varying amounts of weathering.
Finds are d ...
References
{{Meteorites by name
Stony-iron meteorites
Meteorites found in Canada
1931 in science
1931 in Saskatchewan
Geography of Saskatchewan