Structures of Well Preserved Australite Buttons from Port Campbell, Victoria, Australia

. Complete and nearly complete australite buttons in good states of preservation from Port Campbell, Victoria, show excellent structural details and are of great scientific importance. Some of the features on their posterior surfaces are doubtfully assigned a primary origin in an extraterrestrial birthplace but have been modified by terrestrial solution‐etching. Secondary features on their anterior surfaces are due to the effects of aerodynamic frictional heating during transit with stable orientation at supersonic velocity through the earth's atmosphere. Tertiary processes such as subaerial weathering have played some part in slightly modifying their shape and sculpture patterns. They contrast strongly with the many thousands of australites collected from the arid and sub‐arid regions of Australia, and with a considerable number that were abraded by stream or gravity transportation in the more temperate zones of the strewnfield. The majority of such specimens have been more severely weathered with the resultant loss of much or all of their primary and secondary features.