Camel Donga meteorite, Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Camel Donga meteorite	Meteorite Fall Location
Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Eucrite, monomict
1984 Find, ~25 kg

A two-day trip in July 1985 by Brian Mason and W. H. Cleverly to the site of a January 1984 find resulted in 11 additional stones within a kilometer of each other providing a total recovered mass of 2.92 kilograms. The stones were often covered by black fusion crusts, but weathering is quite evident in these and other subsequently recovered stones. The meteorite is composed almost entirely of pyroxene and plagioclase (~3:2 ratio) as angular grains and in matrix. The matrix which also contains quite minor amounts of iron, troilite, ilmenite, and various silica polymorphs. Gabbroic and doleritic clasts are present as well. Pyroxene is mildly Fe-rich; plagioclase is mostly bytownite; iron (Ni-free) accounts for ~2% of the stone. Small amounts of zircon and baddeleyite are also present. These refractory minerals have been especially helpful in leading to additional refinements in establishing a chronology for Camel Donga's journey from its formation on a large, differentiated meteorite (presumably Vesta) until its eventual landfall. Recent iterations of isotopic studies have suggested that almost all of Camel Donga's constituents were formed ~4.56 billion years ago — and that a particular violent impact event ~3.7 billion years ago may represent the ejection of Camel Donga (and its lithological neighbors…) from the original homeworld. After that event, chance, circumstance, more collisions, and gravity lead to its quite recent final collision with the earth [chronological references below].


Notes [Aug 2008)]: Cleverly et al., (1986) provide an excellent review of both the recovery and the overall mineralgy of Camel. Camel Donga is the 5th most massive of the 802 Eucrites listed on the Meteoritical Society's 'Meteoritical Bulletin Database.' All pieces of the original 1984 eucrite find are referred to simply as (pieces of) Camel Donga. A number of separate finds in the same area have been designated Camel Donga 002 thru Camel Donga 053.

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References