Österplana 065 (Öst 065)        58°35’N, 13°26’E

Skaraborgs, Sweden

Find: 2011 June 26

Classification: Relict meteorite

History: On June 26, 2011, the quarry workers in the Thorsberg Quarry at Kinnekulle, southern Sweden, were removing limestone beds of low industrial quality from the upper part of the quarry. In the uppermost quarried bed, Glaskarten 3, the workers identified an 8 × 6.5 × 2 cm prominent gray clay inclusion as a relict meteorite. All the ca. 100 relict meteorites found so far in the quarry are almost completely replaced mainly by calcite and clay minerals, and spinel minerals are the only common relict components. Based on the chemistry of the spinels in the new meteorite it was soon obvious that it was of another kind than all the other recovered relict meteorites. In order to confirm that it indeed was a relict meteorite and not, e.g., an altered volcanic bomb, ¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os and Os analyses were performed on bulk material. The meteorite is as high in Os as recent chondrites, and has the same Os isotopic composition, clearly establishing that this is an extraterrestrial object. Chromium and oxygen-three isotopic analyses have shown that the meteorite is of a kind not represented in our collection of recent meteorites. For further details, see Schmitz et al. (2014) Earth and Planetary Science Letters 400: 145-152

Classification: Chromium and oxygen-three isotopic studies by Qing-zhu Yin and Matt Sanborn, UCD, and Gary Huss and Caroline Caplan, UHaw, show that this relict meteorite is the remains of a type of meteorite that has no equivalent among the meteorites falling on Earth today. The oxygen isotopes indicate affinity with primitive achondrites, whereas the chromium isotopes show affinity with the ordinary chondrites.