Description
Campo del Cielo is a class IAB iron meteorite, comprised of about 93% iron and 6.7% nickel, plus small amounts of trace elements including gallium, germanium, cobalt, and iridium.
In English, the name means “Field of Heaven” or “Field of the sky” and Campo del Cielo is an important historic meteorite, first recorded in 1576 by Spanish explorers under Captain de Miraval in Chaco province, Argentina. De Miraval recovered several fragments in Gran Chaco Gualamba — an area known to be otherwise largely devoid of stones — from a mass known as “Meson de Fierro” (large table of iron). In his Handbook of Iron Meteorites, Vagn Buchwald notes that the “Governor of Santiago del Estero expressly sent Miraval to locate the iron which was known to the Indians and was regarded as having fallen from heaven,” indicating that local peoples were aware of its existence prior to 1576, making Campo del Cielo one of Earth’s oldest-known meteorites.
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