Grove Mountains 150277 (GRV 150277)        72.935278°S, 75.28472°E

Antarctica, Antarctica

Find: 1 Jan 2016

Classification: HED achondrite (Howardite)

History: Found by CHINARE in 2016 from Grove Mountains, Antarctica.

Physical characteristics: Black fusion crust residue covers ~10% of the surface.

Petrography (Bing-kui Miao, Chuantong Zhang, GUT): This meteorite shows brecciated structure, with clasts or debris of various sizes packed in fine-grained matrix. And a fusion crust can be seen at the section edge, which is rich in spherical bubbles. Many species of minerals have been found in the polished thin section. The major minerals are low-Ca pyroxene, and minor minerals are high-Ca pyroxene, plagioclase and silica. In addition, a small amount of chromite, ilmenite and Fe-Ni metals were also found. Finally, this meteorite is rich in various types of clasts, some with diogenite composition, cumulate class with eucrite composition, and basaltic clast with eucrite composition (~ 50:14:36).

Geochemistry (Bing-kui Miao, Chuantong Zhang, GUT, EPMA): Low-Ca pyroxene(n=22): Fe/Mn=28.8±1.6, Mg#=58.9±17.4; Fs_40.2±16.9Wo_1.9±2.6En_57.9±17.5. Plagioclase(n=9): An_90.3±3.7Or_0.4±0.3Ab_9.3±3.5. Diogenitic clasts usually have Mg# values more than 65 mol.%, and basaltic eucritic clasts have Mg# values less than 45 mol.%. The Mg# values of cumulate eucritic clasts are in between the previous two clasts. Classification: This meteorite is composed of nearly equal proportions of diogenitic and eucritic clasts, thus based on texture and mineral composition, it is a howardite.

Classification: Howardite

Specimens: 3.04 g specimen and a polished thin section are deposited in PRIC.