from The Meteoritical Bulletin, No. 111

Northwest Africa 14992 (NWA 14992)

(Northwestern Africa)
Purchased: 2022
Mass: 158 g (1 piece)

Lunar meteorite (basalt)

History: Reportedly found in 2021 and purchased by Ziyao Wang in 2022 from a meteorite dealer in Mauritania.

Physical Characteristics: Single stone with irregular brown exterior surface, no fusion crust present. Fresh broken surface shows a fine-grained mix of gray and light brown grains, with abundant shiny fine grained maskelynite, and some small dark shock melt veins. Unbrecciated.

Petrography: (C. Agee, UNM) Backscatter electron and reflected light microscope images show igneous-zoned olivines and pyroxenes. The modal abundance ratio of olivine to pyroxene is approximately 1:3. Maskelynite makes up approximately 25% of the modal mineralogy. Minor phases include Ti-Cr spinel, Ti-magnetite, ilmenite, troilite, taenite, and kamacite. A prominent shock melt vein was present in the deposit sample microprobe mount.

Geochemistry: (A. Ross and C. Agee, UNM) Olivine Fa53.7±10.1, Fe/Mn=103±10, n=10; clinopyroxene Fs40.2±12.4Wo23.7±7.1, Fe/Mn=64±8, n=20; maskelynite An88.0±2.1Ab11.5±1.9, n=7. Quench melt SiO2=44.0±0.6, TiO2=2.0±0.1, Cr2O3=0.48±0.04, Al2O3=10.5±1.8, MgO=8.0±0.7, FeO=20.8±1.3, MnO=0.24±0.03, CaO=10.6±0.4, Na2O=0.45±0.05, (all wt%, 30 micron defocused beam), n=4. Clinopyroxene shows Fe-enrichment trends that are continuous from Mg-augite and Mg-pigeonite to subcalcic-ferroaugite/ferropigeonite.

Classification: Lunar (mare basalt). Based on the TiO2 content of quench melt this is meteorite is a low-Ti mare basalt (Giguere et al. 2000).

Genuine Guaranteed Lunar meteorite

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How rare is a lunar meteorite?

A few rare meteorites come from the Moon (0.7%) and Mars (0.5%)

A lunar meteorite is a meteorite that is known to have originated on the Moon.

A meteorite hitting the Moon is normally classified as a transient lunar phenomenon.

Lunar meteorites collected in Africa and Oman are, for all practical purposes, the only source of Moon rocks available for private ownership.

This is because all rocks collected during the Apollo Moon-landing program are property of the United States government or of other nations to which the U.S. conveyed them as gifts.

Most lunar meteorites are launched from the Moon by impacts making lunar craters of a few kilometers in diameter or less.

No source crater of lunar meteorites has been positively identified, although there is speculation that the highly anomalous lunar meteorite Sayh al Uhaymir 169 derives from the Lalande impact crater on the lunar near side