Summary A metallic mass brought to the Western Australian Museum from the Wongan Hills district N.W. of Perth has been identified as an iron meteorite of unique type. It has graphite inclusions about I mm across distributed throughout the metal giving a ‘raisin bread’ appearance. Its nickel content (6·65 %) is comparable with that of coarse octahedrites but the kamacite grain structure is anomalous. Its gallium, germanium, and nickel contents place it close to, but outside, Wasson's chemical group IIb. Taenite is absent and troilite is rare. Neumann bands in the kamacite are distorted and the kamacite has flowed around large schreibersite inclusions. The latter have an exceptionally low nickel content (7·0 %) and probably formed at an unusually high temperature. The kamacite contains more phosphorus than normal iron meteorites, and small schreibersite grains in the kamacite are relatively nickel-poor (22 %). The unusual structure of this iron is thought to be due to one or more of the factors high carbon, high phosphorus, and relatively rapid cooling.
Abstract– The article by Fairén et al. (2011) is very interesting to me, as not only have I published, albeit very cursorily, on the occurrence of meteorites on Mars (McCall 2005, 2011, 2012; McCall et al. 2006), but I was the author (McCall 1965) of the description of the Mount Padbury mesosiderite cited by Schröder et al. (2010) in their description of the four stony meteorites also found by the Opportunity rover. I have given my reasons elsewhere for thinking these are not mesosiderites (McCall 2012), but are likely differentiated stony meteorites of a hitherto unknown type.
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