Tintigny        49.683786°N, 5.532957°E

Luxembourg, Belgium

Probable fall: Feb. 1971

Classification: HED achondrite (Eucrite, polymict)

History: (S. de Foestraets, S. Liégeois and V. Debaille): In February 1971, Mr. Eudore Schmitz was working in his barn in the village of Tintigny late in the afternoon, when he heard a noise from the roof of the building. Going upstairs, he found a hole in a tile and a black stone on the floor. The school teacher of the children, Albert Rossignon, confirmed it was a meteorite and kept the stone, hoping for further investigation. The teacher later started religious seminary and became a priest. While he kept the meteorite, and showed it from time to time to visitors and children, the story never spread. Schmitz died in 2006. In 2017, after reading a popular article about Belgian expeditions in Antarctica to find meteorites, Priest Rossignon contacted Vinciane Debaille at ULB. After several contacts, the Schmitz’s 3 children, Jean-Paul, Joseph and Rita Schmitz, and his widow, Madam Germaine Mathu, donated the meteorite to RBINS. Some parts of the meteorite are now missing due to the handling of the stone by various people over the years, but Priest Rossignon confirms that the fusion crust was initially complete with even a piece of the tile stuck on it. Cracks were already visible at that time. The fusion crust is still fresh and shiny with preserved flow lines. The punched tile was recovered from the roof in 2018, as the hole was simply covered by another transparent tile.

Physical characteristics: A single stone partly covered with fresh glassy fusion crust. Light-gray brecciated interior hosts darker (dark-gray to black) clasts.

Petrography: Brecciated ophitic to sub-ophitic texture. Contains low-Ca and high-Ca pyroxene (both with exsolution lamellae), plagioclase, silica polymorph, chromite, troilite, metal. Clasts with melted and variolitic (1 mm) textures are present.

Geochemistry: Low-Ca pyroxenes Fs_33.4-56.5Wo_2.6-9.4, average Fs_41.5±8.5Wo_6.3±2.8 FeO/MnO = 30.6±4.4 (n=6). Ca-pyroxene Fs_30.1-70.0Wo_10.9-38.4, average Fs_51.4±12.3Wo_22.2±9.3 FeO/MnO = 34.7±3.7 (n=8). Average plagioclase An_84.1Or_0.5 (n=4). Oxygen isotopes (R. Greenwood, OU, UK): Δ¹⁷O: -0.246±0.003 per mil; δ¹⁸O= 3.756±0.041 per mil (n=2).

Classification: Achondrite (eucrite, polymict).

Specimens: Main mass and type specimen at RBINS. One polished section at Laboratoire G-TIME (ULB).