Gapyeong        37°53.1’N, 127°27.9E

Kyonggi-do, Korea, Republic of

Found: 1999 Nov

Classification: Iron meteorite (IAB-sLL)

History: The iron of ~180 kg was found at the mountain area near Gapyeong-Gun, Gyeonggi-Do, during forest road construction in 1999 Nov. The owner sliced the surface of the iron and brought it to Seoul-NU in 2005 where it was examined and confirmed as an iron meteorite by Byeon-Gak Choi. The owner cut the iron into 5 pieces and donated one of them (32 kg) to Seoul-NU in 2014 July.

Physical characteristics: The iron is a single mass of 180 kg. The outmost surface of the iron is mostly oxidized by terrestrial weathering but has broad regmaglypts. The weathering depth varies, but is typically a few mm to 1 cm; the interior is very fresh, showing little evidence of weathering.

Petrography: The iron mostly consists of kamacite and taenite with minor or trace amounts of troilite, graphite, schreibersite and cohenite. It shows a coarse Widmanstätten pattern: bandwidth of kamacite varies from 1.2 to 2 mm. Troilite and graphite are found as round or irregularly shaped inclusions. Schreibersite occurs eithier around the troilite-graphite inclusions or along the grain boundaries of kamacite or taenite. No silicate inclusions were found on the surface examined.

Geochemistry: Composition by INAA (J.T. Wasson, UCLA): Cr 23 μg/g, Co 4.93 mg/g, Ni 82.7 mg/g, Ga 66.4 μg/g, Ge 247 μg/g, As 15.9 μg/g, W 0.76 μg/g, Re 266 ng/g, Ir 2.31 μg/g, Au 1.736 μg/g.

Classification: Based on the composition of metal by INAA, the meteorite belongs to the low-Ni, low Au (sLL) group of the IAB complex.

Specimens: The iron was cut into 5 pieces: 72.45 kg, 44.02 kg, 34.02 kg, 21.70 kg, 8.30 kg. The 34.02 kg piece is the type specimen at Seoul-NU.