Moon Rock
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Moon Rock: A piece of the lunar meteorite NWA 4483 Feldspathic granulation impactite
Specimen size approx. 7-12 mg
Northwest Africa 4483
Algeria
Find: July 2006
Achondrite (lunar, granulitic breccia)
History: Purchased by Stefan Ralew in July 2006 from a dealer in Erfoud, Morocco.
Physical characteristics: Twelve broken fragments of very fine-grained, pale grey rock with a combined weight of 208 g.
Petrography: (A. Irving and S. Kuehner, UWS) Fine grained recrystallized breccia composed of larger plagioclase grains (converted mainly to maskelynite) poikilitically enclosing very small grains (mostly 30–80 μm) of low-Ca pyroxene (some with very fine augite exsolution lamellae), olivine, Ti-chromite, ilmenite, troilite, and metal.
Geochemistry: Olivine (Fa30.9–60.8, FeO/MnO = 88.1–106), plagioclase (An96.2–98Or<0.1), orthopyroxene (Fs14.3Wo2.0, FeO/MnO = 52.6), pigeonite (Fs36.4–75.1Wo6.3–13.5, FeO/MnO = 62.9–66.5).
Classification: Achondrite (lunar, granulitic breccia). Possibly paired with Northwest Africa 3163 (Irving et al. 2006).
Specimens: A total of 20 g and one polished mount are on deposit at UWS. Ralew holds the main mass.
Moon rock or lunar rock is rock that is found on the Earth's Moon including lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon, or rock that has been ejected naturally from the Moon's surface (and which has then landed on the Earth as meteorites). Wikipedia