Mars Keeps Throwing Rocks at Earth
And they are greenish-black with a glassy patina.
This is one of the newest finds, classified just two months ago in the MetBull, as NWA 14269, and found in 2021 in the Sahara Desert.
Summary of petrographic analysis at UW: "Martian Shergottite (aphyric, diabasic). Diabasic texture with some preferred orientation of prismatic, zoned clinopyroxene grains and lath-like maskelynite grains. Accessory phases include pyrrhotite, ulvöspinel (with variable Cr contents), ilmenite, silica polymorph, K-feldspar, merrillite and minor baddeleyite. Some small melt pockets containing 'swirly' vesicular glass are present."
Whole stone, 764g, 5.25" x 3" x 3" perched, appropriately, on Rod Pyle's book Destination Mars.
Mars Keeps Throwing Rocks at Earth
And they are greenish-black with a glassy patina.
This is one of the newest finds, classified just two months ago in the MetBull, as NWA 14269, and found in 2021 in the Sahara Desert.
Summary of petrographic analysis at UW: "Martian Shergottite (aphyric, diabasic). Diabasic texture with some preferred orientation of prismatic, zoned clinopyroxene grains and lath-like maskelynite grains. Accessory phases include pyrrhotite, ulvöspinel (with variable Cr contents), ilmenite, silica polymorph, K-feldspar, merrillite and minor baddeleyite. Some small melt pockets containing 'swirly' vesicular glass are present."
Whole stone, 764g, 5.25" x 3" x 3" perched, appropriately, on Rod Pyle's book Destination Mars.