The following paragraph is a draft of what was proposed to appear in the Meteoritical Bulletin 84: Final version, 2000 July, MAPS 35.
http://www.meteoriticalsociety.org/bulletin/mb84.html
Los Angeles (exact find location uncertain)
Los Angeles County, California, USA
Recognized 1999 October 30
Martian basalt (shergottite)
Two stones, weighing 452.6g and 245.4g respectively, were found by Bob Verish in the Mojave Desert, possibly collected ~20 years ago. The specimens went unrecognized in his back yard until he recovered them while he was cleaning out a box of rocks that was part of his rock collection.. Classification and mineralogy (A. Rubin, P. Warren and J. Greenwood, UCLA): a basalt with a texture closely resembling that of the QUE 94201; plagioclase laths, 43.6 vol%, An41Or4 to An58Or1, have been shocked to maskelynite; Ca-pyroxene laths, 37.7 vol%, ranges from Fs45Wo13 to Fs45Wo37 to Fs72Wo24; other mineral modes, 4.9 vol% silica, 4.2 vol% fayalite, 2.4 vol% K-rich felsic glass, 3.5 vol% titanomagnetite, 2.7 vol% Ca phosphate (including whitlockite and chlorapatite), 0.7 vol% pyrrhotite, and 0.2 vol% ilmenite; contains a higher proportion of plagioclase than Shergotty or Zagami, and has pyroxene that is moderately more ferroan than that in QUE 94201.
Specimens: main masses with finder; 30 g, UCLA.

Click on image at left for a larger image. This specimen comes with a plastic display box. Cube is shown for scale and is not included.

 

California's rarest meteorite - which has been ground and polished. Click on image at left for a larger image. This slice is now being made available to collectors - make your BEST OFFER.

 

All images are of the same part slice - but this image is of the opposite side.

Close-up of the opposite side.

On my index finger for scale.

Close-up of the other side. Click on image in order to enlarge it. Click on your web browser's "BACK" button in order to return here.

Last Updated: June 8, 2004