Treysa meteorite, Schwalmstadt, Schwalm-Eder, Kassel Region, Hesse, Germanyi

Regional Level Types
Treysa meteorite	Meteorite Fall Location
Schwalmstadt	Town
Schwalm-Eder	District
Kassel Region	Region
Hesse	City-State
Germany	Country

Iron meteorite, octahedrite (IIIAB-an, Om)
Fall, 3 Apr 1916; 63 kg

A fireball was seen over a radius of 150 km while detonations were heard over a radius of ~50 km. A few months later, after collecting and analyzing the various reports, Alfred Wegener helped to organize a search complete with a reward. He had been further encouraged by the fact that the bolide had apparently not broken up as frequently happens. Eleven months after the fall, a partially filled hole (1 m wide; 25 cm deep) was found and an iron meteorite was then uncovered at a depth of 1.6 meters. Although rust stains had begun to cover the surface, the thin fusion crust had prevented the corrosive effects of rain and snow from penetrating into the interior. As an iron meteorite (~9 wt% Ni), Treysa is characterized by prominent kamacite, taenite, and plessite accompanied by accessory schreibersite and troilite. The kamacite exhibits straight kamacite lamellae in etched sections with taenite and plessite accounting for roughly 35 vol% of the meteorite. Schreibersite is common as monocrystalline, somewhat brecciated crystals. Magnetite and wüstite are found in the fusion crust.

Treysa has received some attention as its cosmic ray exposure age (several hundred million years) was one of the first indicators that iron meteorites (more precisely, their immediate pre-terrestrial precursors) are less effected by space erosion than stony meteorites [from micrometeorite bombardment, cosmic rays…].
Treysa is one of 11 witnessed IIIAB irons to be recovered. Its trace element inventory is a little odd (Ir, esp., is higher than expected) so its full classification is 'IIIAB-anomalous.'

Most of the mass is held in the Mineralogical Museum in Marburg, Germany.

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References