Name: Queen Alexandra Range 99609 This is an OFFICIAL meteorite name. Abbreviation: QUE 99609 Observed fall: No Year found: 1999 Country: Antarctica [Collected by US Antarctic Search for Meteorites program (ANSMET)] Mass: 24.5 g
Macroscopic Description: Kathleen McBride
The exterior has a shiny black fusion crust with yellow rust-colored circular splotches. The interior is powdery, light gray matrix and very friable. Submillimeter clasts of gray and white are mixed throughout.
* Meteorite was returned broken into numerous chips and fines. The largest piece shows that the rock was circular in shape or perhaps like a disk. Measurement from fusion crust to fusion crust is ~1.5 cm.
Thin Section (, 2) Description: Tim McCoy, Linda Welzenbach, and Gretchen Benedix
Plane-Polarized Light
Cross-Polarized Light
This meteorite consists of a finely comminuted matrix containing individual mineral grains of plagioclase and pyroxene and basaltic to gabbroic clasts up to 2 mm in diameter, which themselves exhibit a wide range of grains sizes. Pyroxenes are finely exsolved with end member compositions for orthopyroxene of Fs59Wo3 and augite of Fs29Wo40. Plagioclase is An90. The Fe/Mn ratio of the pyroxene is ~27. The meteorite is a brecciated eucrite.