Northwest Africa 13120 (NWA 13120)

Southern Provinces, Morocco

Find: 2015

Classification: Lunar meteorite (feldspathic breccia)

History: The meteorite was purchased in Tucson by Zhouping Guo.

Physical characteristics: A single bulk specimen lacks fusion crust. The sample specimen has obvious breccia characteristics and presents two different color regions: the dark color region with a polished external appearance; the light color region with a large amount of fine-grained terrestrial mineral fragment on the surface.

Petrography: Petrology (Z.Xia, B.Miao, GUT): The polished section was cut from the light color region of the specimen. The observation of petrology of this meteorite is based on this polished section. The meteorite shows typical breccia structure and large-area melt. All the lithological clast are melt-rock, except a basalt clast (80 × 160 μm). The matrix is dominated by glass with lot of vesicles, as well as few very-fine particles (<10 μm). The chemical composition of the glass is similar with that of anorthite. The main mineral is plagioclase, with a small amount of olivine, pyroxene, ilmenite, and troilite. Pyroxenes show chemical zoning in basalt clast. The abundance of the vesicles reaches 4 vol%.

Geochemistry (Z.Xia, B.Miao, GUT): Plagioclase: An_92.1-96.4Or_0.03-0.71 (n=48); Olivine: Fa_27-35, Fe/Mn=78-101 in melt-rock clast. Pyroxene in basalt: Fs_15.11-69.72Wo_22.36-46.14, Fe/Mn=37-73; Glass: SiO₂ 42.9 wt%, Al₂O₃ 35.93 wt%, CaO 19.9 wt%, FeO 0.47 wt%, Na₂O 0.49 wt%, MgO 0.18 wt%, K₂O 0.01 wt%.

Classification: Lunar (felspathic breccia)

Specimens: Two polished sections and about 20 g sample are stored in the Institution of Meteorites and Planetary Materials Research of GUT, the main mass is exhibited in the Geological Museum of Guilin.