Huckitta 401.0g

Description

Pallasite, Found in Australia, 1924

The Huckitta meteorite was recovered in 1937 from Huckitta Cattle Station in Australia. The history of cattle stations began in the early 1880s with Aborigines playing an important role as stockmen. In 1924, a small 1,084 gram mass, dubbed Alice Springs, was found in the area. 13 years later the main mass was recovered, weighing in at 1,411 kilos. Historically, darker pieces are thought to come from the larger, main mass and pieces containing olivine come from the smaller mass.

Huckitta is considered anomalous for its elemental abundances; examining the interior of a sliced specimen will reveal as much, as it just doesn’t look quite like other pallasites; it is known for its very dark, altered olivine crystals and terrestrialized iron matrix. Classified as a pallasite, the 1,411.5 kilogram main mass is severely weathered. In fact, some pieces display such advanced stages of terrestrial weathering that the nickel-iron matrix has been transformed into iron oxides hematite and magnetite. Thousands of pounds of iron shale that had weathered off the meteorite were also collected from the find site.