Name: Miller Range 15052 This is an OFFICIAL meteorite name. Abbreviation: MIL 15052 Observed fall: No Year found: 2015 Country: Antarctica [Collected by US Antarctic Search for Meteorites program (ANSMET)] Mass: 865 g
This triangular shaped specimen measures ~10 x 9 x 4 cm with one apex of the triangle rounded, tapering to a thin edge at the opposite side. The upper convex surface exhibits a partial fusion crust, with ragged edges around the center where the fusion crust appears to have spalled off during flight (for comparison, see San Francisco Mts.) Pitting is minor with a few rust halos. The opposite surface is concave towards the tapered end and exhibits the Widmanstätten pattern on the surface, a feature observed in a few other desert meteorites. One apex of the triangle along the thin edge is fractured, suggestive of minor, late-stage breakup of the meteorite during flight.
Thin Section Description
- Cari Corrigan, Tim McCoy
A complete longitudinal section was studied. The meteorite is a medium octahedrite with kamacite bandwidths of 0.8-1.0 mm with taenite regions exhibiting a variety of plessitic structures, including comb plessite. Kamacite lamellae are often cored by schreibersite, which occurs as interspersed grains along the axis of the lamellae. One edge of the section retains an ~1 mm thick well-preserved fusion crust underlain by a thin α2 region. A microprobe traverse across the section yielded an approximate average composition of 8.6 wt.% Ni and 0.40 wt.% P. The Ni and P concentrations (Yang and Goldstein, 2005) and kamacite bandwidth suggest a IIIAB iron.
JSC: Mailcode XI, 2101 NASA Parkway, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058, United States; Website (institutional address; updated 28 Jul 2022) SI: Department of Mineral Sciences, NHB-119, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560, United States; Website (institutional address; updated 16 Jan 2012)
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