Rocks on Fire Meteorite Sales

Dimensions: 21.8 x 16.4 x 11.2 mm max.
Name: Boxhole IIIA
Location: Dneiper Station, Northern Territory
Country: AUSTRALIA
Date: Find: June, 1937
Weight: 11.74 g

The Chemical Composition of the Boxhole Meteorite is:
Iron approx. 90 %
Nickel 7.64%
Gallium 18.1 ppm
Germanium 37.2 ppm
Iridium 8.2 ppm

The Meteorite Classification is as follows;
Medium Octahedrite - Group IIIA - (Om) - Widmanstätten bandwidth - 1.0 mm.
Shock-hatched and annealed kamacite structure

The Minerals in the "Boxhole" are:
Kamacite, Taenite make up to 99%+ of the meteorite.
Troilite (an iron sulfide) is common as nodules and in recrystallized form.
Chromite (iron chromium oxide) is found occasionally.

The Boxhole Meteorite fell according to E.M Shoemaker about 30,000 years ago. The Meteorite Crater is located approx. 290 km north east of Alice Springs, and about 300 m from the Homestead of Dneiper (Boxhole) Cattle Station.

The meteorite crater was recognized during a geological survey of that area in June, 1937. A number of iron fragments and shale balls were found then. Later, several larger masses were found, including one of 82 kg. The material is very similar to the Henbury meteorite. Prior to its fall, the Boxhole Meteorite would have been in one piece and perhaps the size of a 200 l drum. It would have accelerated to over 50,000 km/h, before entering the Earth's atmosphere. Travelling at such velocity, the atmosphere would not have appreciable reduced it's speed. Such a huge body, travelling so fast, slams into the ground with enough energy to produce an explosion like a nuclear bomb. This is what caused the huge crater at Boxhole, in front of a quarzite ridge, bowl-shaped, with a diameter of 178 m and a depth of approx. 16 m.

More than 500 kilograms of meteorite fragments have since been collected at the site, the largest amount on record being in the South Australian Museum in Adelaide and weighing a total of 178 kilograms. The Natural History Museum in London counts for 84.7 kg.
Boxhole is classified as an iron meteorite, since it consists principally of metal, and is called a Medium Octahedrite, since it falls into about the middle range of nickel-iron alloy composition. It shows a partly recrystallised kamacite structure.

Radiometric dating of the meteorite itself suggests an age of about 4.5 billion years, suggesting it was formed at the very beginning of the Solar System, and which makes it among the oldest material known to exist ( the oldest rocks being only half its age!). The metal of the meteorite is crystallised internally in a beautiful crisscross array, known as the Widmanstätten Pattern which is unique to iron meteorites, and develops because the meteorite has cooled from a molten state in zero gravity at a rate of only a few degrees per million years.

We hope you will enjoy owning this unique piece of our Solar System, your own Space Traveller, from way out there.

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