Peckelsheim meteorite, Peckelsheim, Willebadessen, Höxter, Detmold, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germanyi

Regional Level Types
Peckelsheim meteorite	Meteorite Fall Location
Peckelsheim	Borough
Willebadessen	Town
Höxter	District
Detmold	Administrative District
North Rhine-Westphalia	State
Germany	Country

Diogenite, polymict
Fell 3 Mar 1953, 117.8 g, 1 stone
According to https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peckelsheim the meteorite fell in a forest area near Peckelsheim (suburb of Willebadessen)- the coordinates given in the MetBull database are obviously wrong because they put the full location about 8 km away from Peckelsheim .

A loud whine was heard just before a small meteorite struck a tree bough and fell at the ??? of some workers. The small stone was only the eighth of a total of 11 witnessed diogenite falls. All 11 diogenite falls have been plutonic pyroxenites consisting of ~90% orthopyroxene with somewhat different brecciation and partial re-equilibration histories. And they have been invariably accompanied by a number of minor silicates and opaques. Peckelsheim's various silicates include clinopyroxenes, tridymite, olivine, and two varieties of plagioclase (anorthite and bytownite). Reported opaques include chromite, ilmenite, copper, pentlandite, schreibersite, chalcopyrite, troilite as well as Fe-Ni metal. It is unclear whether the number of reported opaques reported for Peckelsheim represent a greater variety than present in other diogenites or whether our knowledge of opaques has been enhanced because Peckelsheim was very carefully studied by a maestro of ore mineralogy, Paul Ramdohr. Ramdohr was a master of reflected light oil-immersion microscopy, a procedure which under a master eye readily reveals the mineralogical identity of the ubiquitous unidentified 'sulfides' reported in many electron microscopy studies. Peckelsheim also contains some unusual Fe-Ni metal assemblages. Kamacite, sometimes Ni-poor, sometimes Co-rich and sometimes accompanied by taenite is reported by several groups. Metal with Ni > 50 wt% - most or all of it tetrataenite - is also reported.

The orthopyroxenite diogenite meteorites and a few other more olivine-rich diogenite finds are all part of the HED achondrite suite (HED = Howardite-Eucrite-Diogenite) of differentiated meteorites which are derived from an unknown number of large asteroidal parent bodies. The recent DAWN mission with its detailed mapping of the surface of asteroid 4 Vesta has made it quite clear that Vesta is almost certainly the parent body of the great majority of HED meteorites. Simultaneously, however, asteroidal observations of unusual more distant asteroids, detailed analysis of Mn/Fe and REE ratios and, especially, new high-resolution studies of O-isotope ratios make it even clearer that all HED meteorites did not originate on the same homeworlds. It will still take some time before we can confidentially assert that a specific diogenite (such as Peckelsheim) originated on Venus in the manner that contemporary archaeologists can assert that such an Etruscan or Egyptian bracelet was forged from Cyprus copper. But, we are on our way.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References