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Lunar Meteorite: Dhofar 490 & 1084 (paired stones)

Oman

Dhofar 1084 in the field.
Click on image for enlargement. (Photo by Siegfried Beutel, courtesy of Haberer-Meteorites.)
Small slabs of Dhofar 490 (left) and 1084 (right). Tick marks on the scale are spaced at 1 mm increments. Click on image for enlargement. (Photos by Randy Korotev.)

from The Meteoritical Bulletin No. 87, Meteoritics & Planetary Science 38, A189-A248 (2003)

Dhofar 490

18°43.00'N 54°27.00'E

Oman
Found 2001 March 17 
Lunar meteorite (anorthositic fragmental breccia) 

A dark grey, crusted stone weighing 34.05 g was found in the Dhofar region of Oman. Classification and mineralogy (A. Greshake, MNB and M. Kurz, Kurz): meteorite is an anorthositic fragmental breccia consisting of clasts of various lithologies embedded into a glassy, partly devitrified fine-grained matrix; the clast size is generally below 3 mm; vesicles are abundant; feldspar: An96.0-99.3; pyroxene: Fs11.5-35.7Wo8.2-44.9 and olivine: Fa30.6-50.0; augites dominate over Ca-poor pyroxenes and often contain pigeonite exsolution lamellae; accessory phases are Fe-Ni metal and ilmenite; crystalline fragments include microporphyritic impact melt breccias, intersertal impact melt clasts, gabbroic anorthosites, and large feldspar; no mare basalt clasts and no glass spherules have been identified; feldspar generally shows pronounced undulatory extinction and sometimes mosaicism indicating strong shock metamorphism; the meteorite is moderately weathered; gypsum, celestite and calcite occur in cracks and holes; Dhofar 490 may be paired with Dhofar 280 since they were found nearby <sic?> and have similar mineralogical characteristics; specimens: 7 g and one thin section, MNB; main mass with anonymous finder.

Dhofar 1084

from The Meteoritical Bulletin, No. 88, Meteoritics & Planetary Science 39, A215-A272 (2004) (Table 5)
  lunar rock type
date found
mass
(g)
number
of pieces
An
Fa
Fs
Dhofar 908 breccia
? Jan 2003
245
9
93-99
31±9
27±7.5
Dhofar 909 breccia
2 Feb 2003
3.9
1
94-98
26.5±5
24±5
Dhofar 910 breccia
142
1
94-100
34±9
30±7
Dhofar 911 breccia
194
9
93-98
26±3
22±5
Dhofar 1084  
10 Apr 2003
4 Oct 2003*
90
1
92-98
43±5
30±9
Dhofar 1085  
1 Oct 2003
197
4
93-99
34±10
31±8

* fide: Siegfried Beutel


It's a rather typical feldspathic lunar meteorite.
  

 

More Information

Meteoritical Bulletin Database

Dhofar 490 | Dhofar 1084

Map

Schematic Map of the Find Locations of the Dhofar Lunar Meteorites

References

Korotev R. L. (2005) Lunar geochemistry as told by lunar meteorites. Chemie der Erde 65, 297–346.

Korotev R. L. (2006) New geochemical data for a some poorly characterized lunar meteorites (abstract). In Lunar and Planetary Science XXVII, number 1404, Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston.

Korotev R. L., Irving A. J., and Bunch T. E. (2008) Keeping up with the lunar meteorites – 2008 (abstract). In Lunar and Planetary Science XXXIX, abstract no. 1209, 39th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Houston.

Nishiizumi K. and Caffee M. W. (2006) Constraining the number of lunar and martian meteorite falls (abstract). In Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 41, p. A133, 69th Annual Meeting, Meteoritical Society.

Chemical Classification

Overview | Dhofar 490/1084
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Prepared by:

Randy L. Korotev

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Washington University in St. Louis

Please don't contact me about the meteorite you think you’ve found until you read this and this.

e-mail: korotev@wustl.edu

Last revised: 10-Jul-2009