Premium
Jesenice—A new meteorite fall from Slovenia
Author(s) -
BISCHOFF Addi,
JERSEK Miha,
GRAU Thomas,
MIRTIC Breda,
OTT Ulrich,
KUČERA Jan,
HORSTMANN Marian,
LAUBENSTEIN Matthias,
HERRMANN Siegfried,
ŘANDA Zdeněk,
WEBER Marc,
HEUSSER Gerd
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
meteoritics and planetary science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.09
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1945-5100
pISSN - 1086-9379
DOI - 10.1111/j.1945-5100.2011.01191.x
Subject(s) - chondrite , meteorite , plagioclase , geology , meteoroid , olivine , chondrule , geochemistry , parent body , ordinary chondrite , breccia , radionuclide , mineralogy , astrobiology , physics , paleontology , quartz , quantum mechanics
– On April 9, 2009, at 3:00 CEST, a very bright fireball appeared over Carinthia and the Karavanke Mountains. The meteoroid entered the atmosphere at a very steep angle and disintegrated into a large number of objects. Two main objects were seen as separate fireballs up to an altitude of approximately 5 km, and witnesses reported loud explosions. Three stones were found with a total weight of approximately 3.611 kg. The measured activity of short‐lived cosmogenic radionuclides clearly indicates that two specimens result from a very recent meteorite fall. All cosmogenic radionuclide concentrations suggest a rather small preatmospheric radius of <20 cm; a nominal cosmic‐ray exposure age based on 21 Ne is approximately 4 Ma, but the noble gas and radionuclide results in combination indicate a complex irradiation. Jesenice is a highly recrystallized rock with only a few relic chondrules visible in hand specimen and thin section. The texture, the large grain size of plagioclase, and the homogeneous compositions of olivines and pyroxenes clearly indicate that Jesenice is a L6 chondrite. The bulk composition of Jesenice is very close to the published average element concentration for L ordinary chondrites. The chondrite is weakly shocked (S3) as indicated by the undulatory extinction in olivine and plagioclase and the presence of planar fractures in olivine. Being weakly shocked and with gas retention ages of >1.7 Ga ( 4 He) and approximately 4.3 Ga ( 40 Ar), Jesenice seems not to have been strongly affected by the catastrophic disruption of the L‐chondrite parent body approximately 500 Ma ago.