Tenham meteorites are the fragments of a larger

meteorite A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the ...

that fell in 1879 in a remote area of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

near the Tenham station, South Gregory, in western

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

. Although the fall was seen by a number of people, its exact date has not been established. Bright meteors were seen to be moving roughly from west to east. Stones were subsequently recovered from over a large area, about long by wide. Because the Tenham meteorites were recovered quite soon after they fell, from a remote and dry region in which weathering and other alterations had not set in, they have been invaluable for scientific study of meteorites and their mineral contents. They are examples of chondritic meteorites, containing a high level of organic compounds, and rich in silicates, oxides, and sulfides. Many scientific studies have explored the mineralogy of these meteorites and their non-terrestrial features. Because the Tenham meteorites show evidence of high pressure deformations, they have been used to infer chemical and mineral changes that might occur within Earth's

mantle A mantle is a piece of clothing, a type of cloak. Several other meanings are derived from that. Mantle may refer to: *Mantle (clothing), a cloak-like garment worn mainly by women as fashionable outerwear **Mantle (vesture), an Eastern Orthodox ve ...

. Ringwoodite, the high pressure

forsterite Forsterite (Mg2SiO4; commonly abbreviated as Fo; also known as white olivine) is the magnesium-rich end-member of the olivine solid solution series. It is isomorphous with the iron-rich end-member, fayalite. Forsterite crystallizes in the orthor ...

polymorph named after

Ted Ringwood Alfred Edward "Ted" Ringwood FRS FAA (19 April 1930 – 12 November 1993) was an Australian experimental geophysicist and geochemist, and the 1988 recipient of the Wollaston Medal. The mineral ringwoodite is named after him. Early life and st ...

, was discovered in fragments of the Tenham meteorite. In 2014, a team of scientists at Argonne National Laboratory studied a sample of bridgmanite, a

silicate perovskite Silicate perovskite is either (the magnesium end-member is called bridgmanite) or (calcium silicate known as davemaoite) when arranged in a perovskite structure. Silicate perovskites are not stable at Earth's surface, and mainly exist in the low ...

(), taken from the Tenham meteorite. The team used micro-focused X-rays for diffraction analysis and fast-readout area-detector techniques to avoid damage to the sample. The study yielded results not seen when using synthetic samples, including a higher than expected presence of

sodium Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na (from Latin ''natrium'') and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable iso ...

and ferric

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

References

{{coord, 25, 44, 0, S, 142, 57, 0, E, scale:100000_region:AU, display=title Chondrite meteorites Geology of Queensland Meteorites found in Australia Geological type localities

See also

References