Notes

Note 1: Names column

Official names recognized by the Meteorite Nomenclature Committee are shown in green rows, and contain the word "Official" in the status column. These names may be used in all publications of the Meteoritical Society, punctuated and with diacritical marks as shown. The exception to this is for some characters that cannot be displayed in this application; these are indicated in the Notes field at the far right. Unofficial names are shown in orange rows (see note 3)

Meteorite names are sorted alphabetically EXCEPT in the cases of numbered series for which a strict alphabetic sort would break the numerical order. For meteorites with numbers of the form YYnnn or YYnnnn, where YY is the last two digits of the year of collection and nnn is a sequence number, sorting is by chronologic, then numerical order. Thus, Meteorite Hills 96537 comes before Meteorite Hills 00400.

When ** is shown after a meteorite name, this indicates that a full writeup from the Meteoritical Bulletin will appear if you click on the meteorite name.

Note 2: Abbreviations column

Officially recognized abbreviations for meteorite names are shown in the Abbrev column. These are the preferred abbreviations for use in Meteoritical Society publications, with punctuation and spacing as shown. Abbreviations always have a space between the place-name abbreviation and the numerical portion of the name, except in the cases of (1) Antarctic meteorites collected between 1976 and 1981 by the US or teams including the US, where the letter A replaces the space; and (2) Antarctic meteorites collected by Japanese teams, where a hyphen replaces the space.

Abbreviations for meteorite names should be introduced and defined in publications as would any other abbreviation.

Note that abbreviations are not the actual names of the meteorites, even for Antarctic meteorites for which the use of the abbreviation is widespread.

In addition, the space that appears in the numeric part of abbreviations used by Johnson Space Center is incorrect and should not be used (for example, "LAP 02205" is right, "LAP 02 205" is wrong)

Note 3: Status column

The status of names is derived primarily from the Catalogue of Meteorites and the Meteoritical Bulletin, where: "Official" indicates a formally recognized name; "Doubtful" usually indicates that a lack of specimens or unavailability of specimens to scientists casts doubt on the existence of actual recovered meteorites; "Pseudo" indicates that the name refers to an object that has been proven NOT to be a meteorite, and "Provisional" indicates that the name has been assigned by the Nomenclature Committee, but formal approval has not been granted (provisional names should not be used in publications). Some meteorites of doubtful or pseudo status were taken from MetBase (see note 9).

Note 4: Fall column

Meteorites classified before 2015 have one of two entries in the Fall column:

  • "Fall" (symbol Y; the meteorite was recorded in MetBull or older catalogs as a fall)
  • "Find" (column will be blank, indicating the meteorite was recorded as a find)

Starting in 2015 (MetBull 104), there are 5 categories of falls and finds:

  • "Confirmed fall" (symbol Yc)
  • "Probable fall" (symbol Yp)
  • "Find, possible fall" (symbol Np)
  • "Find, doubtful fall" (symbol Nd)
  • "Find" (blank, just like older finds)
Note 5: Year column

The year of the find or fall. For meteorites of unknown provenance, this field may also contain the year of purchase. If two years are shown, this indicates disagreement between the two sources used for the compilation (The Catalogue of Meteorites and MetBase).

Note 6: Types column

The Type field shows the classification of the meteorite. If the meteorite was published in both the Catalogue of Meteorites and MetBase (see columns NHMCat and MetBase), both classifications will appear if they do not agree. If the meteorite was just published in one of these sources, the classification from that source will be listed. If the meteorite was published in neither, the classification comes from the Meteoritical Bulletin (approved names) or from unreviewed reports (provisional names).

Note 7: MetBull column

The number of the Meteoritical Bulletin in which the name was published. Links to Bulletins 36 (1966) and later are available. Earlier Bulletins were published in Russian and are not available online.

Note 8: AMN column

"Ant" refers to issues of Antarctic Meteorite Newsletter (AMN), published by Johnson Space Center, unless the reference starts with a J, in which case it refers to Meteorite Newsletter (MN), published by the National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo. Links are available for AMN issues 17(3) (August, 1994) and later. Earlier AMN numbers and all MN numbers are not available online.

Note 9: Catalogs column

CATALOGS:

  • MetBase 7.2 for Microsoft Windows is an electronic information system holding a large compilation of meteorite data. MetBase provides information on scientific studies and analyses done on specific meteorites and references the corresponding publications. Basic information including classifications and analysis data is stored in tables and can be retrieved for over 29,830 known meteorites. MetBase also contains information on more than 69,000 meteorite specimens in over 700 collections worldwide. With about 79,000 references, MetBase also holds a large keyword-indexed bibliography on meteoritics and related subjects, including lunar rocks, impact cratering, tektites, meteors, asteroids, cosmochemistry and solar system origin, micrometeorites and IDPs, exobiology, and martian geology. For more information, write to [email protected]. A comet symbol in this column indicates that a meteorite is listed in MetBase.
  • The Catalogue of Meteorites, together with the Meteoritical Bulletin, is the primary source for information on meteorites. The N symbol in this column gives a link to the online version of the Catalogue for all included meteorites.
  • The Japanese Collection of Antarctic Meteorites is documented in a database maintained by the National Institute of Polar Research. The NIPR symbol in this column is a link to the entry for the meteorite in the NIPR catalog
Note 11: Maps or lat/long column

Geographical coordinates of meteorites are used to produce links to maps. The World Wind link requires that you have NASA's free World Wind program installed on your computer. The Google Earth link requires that you have the free Google Earth client installed. These will both provide interactive maps showing the meteorite's find location in the context of topography, satellite imagery, topographic maps and aerial photos. The Google Maps link shows the meteorite's find location in your browser window, using either road maps, satellite imagery, or aerial photographs as backgrounds. Map and image coverage in all of these services is strongly dependent on location. If only one map link is shown, this indicates consensus between the two data sources (The Catalogue of Meteorites and MetBase) or that the location only appears in one of these sources. When the two sources differ, both locations are shown.

Note 12: Synonyms

A synonym is an unofficial name for a meteorite. Synonyms are listed in the Meteoritical Bulletin Database when a meteorite has appeared in catalogs or publications with a different name, spelling, punctuation, or diacritical marks; when a meteorite has been widely purchased or traded under a different name; or when a meteorite name is officially changed, with the old name becoming a synonym. Names given to individual masses of large meteorites are also listed as synonyms for the official, collective name of the meteorite. In addition, when a numbering system is established for meteorites in a dense collection area, and this area takes its name from an existing find in the area, the original meteorite is assigned a synonym with number "001" (or whatever is lowest in the numbering system). In general, "pet names" for meteorites are not listed as synonyms.

Certain types of synonyms are implicit, and not always shown here. These include cases where the formal name is stripped of diacritical marks, where abbreviations within the formal name (e.g., St.) are spelled out, or where words in the formal name (e.g., Mount) are abbreviated.

Synonyms are not official names; the correct name is given next to the synonym. Synonyms are provided only for reference and historical context. Only the official names of meteorites should be used in catalogs and publication, except as needed to provide similar historical context or to identify specific masses.

Note 13: World Wind Add-on

World Wind is a free program from NASA that lets you download and display satellite imagery, aerial photographs, topographic maps, and other types of data on a 3-dimensional model of the Earth's surface. This Meteoritical Bulletin add-on allows you to display the locations of all nonAntarctic meteorites using World Wind. The current version of World Wind (1.3.1), is not compatible with the Meteoritical Bulletin add-on. After downloading and installing World Wind, it is necessary to upgrade to the latest alpha test version of version 1.3.2. By default, only North American meteorites will display. To display meteorites from other continents, activate the Layer Manager, expand the Meteoritical Bulletin entry, and select the new area.

Note 14: Full-text searches

If you search the text, a full-text search of the writeups from the Meteoritical Bulletin and Antarctic Meteorite Newsletter is performed. Note that the current implementation of the database does not index words that are smaller than 4 characters. After doing the search, a "score" is displayed, indicating how good the match of the search terms to the text came out. Higher numbers are better, and indicate that either more search terms were found or the search terms were closer to the beginning of the text.

Note 15: Individual writeups

Writeups on individual meteorites are intended to be identical to those in the original source. However, errors may have occurred during processing of the original text to produce the version contained in this database. In addition, some of the Meteoritical Bulletin text entries were prepared from the final text submitted to the journal for publication; it is possible that last-minute changes to galley proofs may have been made, which would not be reflected in the version in this database. Please be sure to consult the original, published document on matters of critical importance to be certain of accuracy.

Note 16: Masses

Masses are taken from the Catalogue of Meteorites, MetBase, and/or the Meteoritical Bulletin. In most cases, they represent the total known weight of the meteorite. The masses shown here should not be considered as authoritative, and may be rounded off. Qualifying marks in the primary sources of data, such as ">", "<", and "~", have simply been dropped.

Note 17: Geography

Countries are mainly based on the country given for each meteorite in the Meteoritical Bulletin, MetBase, and the Catalogue of Meteorites. In some cases, there are small disagreements between these countries and the country implied by the given geographic coordinates. These discrepancies were always resolved in favor of the published country, assuming the error is in the coordinates, although it is possible that the problem is that borders may have changed over time. The state or province is calculated from the geographic coordinates given in MetBase or the Meteoritical Bulletin using the GIS file "admin00" published by ESRI. For US meteorites, discrepancies between published and calculated state names were resolved in favor of the published names.

Note 18: Photographs

All photographs listed in the Meteoritical Bulletin Database are given as links to publically accessible images on other websites. Links to images in the Encyclopedia of Meteorites are updated each night. Some of the images may be copyrighted. Images may be viewed by clicking on the name of an individual meteorite and following the links given in the Photographs section of the detailed information page.

Note 19: Strewnfields

If you check this box, only meteorites for which information is stored on individual members of the strewnfield will be shown.