Battle Mountain        40.66813°N, 117.18913°W

Humboldt County, Nevada, USA

Fell: 2012 Aug 22 06:17 (UTC)

Classification: Ordinary chondrite (L6)

History: The fall was observed in weather radar imagery from the US NEXRAD radar network,  operated by the US National Weather Service. The discovery and analysis was done by Dr. Marc Fries, Galactic Analytics LLC. The KLRX radar in Elko, Nevada, is approximately 33 km from the fall site and recorded the fall in eight radar sweeps between 0619.26 UTC and 0621.03 UTC. This time span of 97 s is short compared to other meteorite falls observed by radar. This could be a result of meteorite production by a single, large breakup event, by relatively little fragmentation, or a combination of the two factors. The first stone was found on September 1, 2012, 10:50 AM (PDT) by Robert Verish; it weighs 19.25 g.  As of 3 Oct 2012, at least 23 stones with a total mass of ~2.9 kg have been reported.

Physical characteristics: Most stones have a similar appearance, with a blocky shape where corners are not well-rounded; where orientation is exhibited, it is poorly developed. Regmaglypts are smaller than thumb-sized. Fusion-crust is uniformly distributed but thin, and on some sides of several stones displays a brownish patina on an otherwise uniformly black surface.

Petrography: (Alan Rubin, UCLA): The stone is recrystallized with 50-μm-size plagioclase grains. Olivine grains exhibit weak mosaicism; many chromite grains are extensively fractured. Troilite grains commonly polycrystalline. There has been localized melting of metal and sulfide. Several grains of metallic Cu occur inside metal at the boundaries of small (apparently melted) irregularly shaped troilite grains.

Geochemistry: Ca-pyroxene Fs_7.8Wo_43.7 (n=2); low-Ca pyroxene Fs_19.8±0.2Wo_1.3±0.3% (n=22)

Classification: Ordinary Chondrite (L6), grains are extensively fractured - moderately shocked (S4), unweathered (W0).

Specimens: An endcut of the 19.25 g stone found Sept. 1 was thin-sectioned and classified by UCLA. A slice from this stone of 3.85 g (20%) is held by UCLA. Another stone (56.5 g) was found in 3 pieces and is held by the finder, Martin Cunningham, Battle Mountain, Nevada. The finder donated one of the 3 pieces to UCLA which makes a total of 46 g type specimen. The second find from this fall (954 g) is held by RWard, who purchased it from the finder. This stone is the largest mass recovered to date.