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PhotosTissint (Tata) Martian meteorite

6th Mar 2012 09:23 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder

Shergottite meteorite, Maskelynite, Pigeonite

Tissint Martian meteorite, Tata Cercle, Tata Province, Souss-Massa Region, Morocco

This photo was previously listed as a mineral photograph, with olivine as the primary mineral.

It's an excellent and useful photograph, but it was wrongly categorized. The reason being that it is a rock rather than a mineral sample, and although in some cases we can accept rocks as examples of mineral photos (for rock-forming minerals), in most cases the photo will need to make clear which areas on the photo are which minerals.

For photos such as this, in future, there is a category under "Other" for "Rocks, fossils, etc", which is the appropriate place for this.

Please do not take this as a criticism of the photograph or the uploader, we want more meteorite photos! I just wanted to use this as an example of how to deal with some of the more complex photo categorization issues we have here.

Jolyon

6th Mar 2012 19:48 UTCMichael Roarke Expert

Thanks for the clarification, Jolyon. Will do. Mike.

6th Mar 2012 21:47 UTCMatteo Chinellato Expert

I have only over 700 photos of different meteorites, but on mindat few its present in the database

9th Mar 2012 01:35 UTCMichael Roarke Expert

Hi

A couple of thoughts. I notice that when meteorites are classified as "other", they do not get viewed. This seems to defeat the whole purpose of uploading them - to share the photos.

While there is a category of Meteoritic Iron, which makes sharing photos of nickel-iron meteorites useful, the stony meteorite photos have no heading through which they can be searched other than "locality". While this makes logical sense, in a more practical sense a viewer, especially a beginner collector or a young person, won't think to look under a locality. Searching these seems to require knowledge of database structure and/or extra effort (more typing, clicks).

Would it be possible to establish headings such as "Carbonaceous chondrite meteorite - (CM)" or "Meteorite - Martian shergottite" or some other format that would make these more searchable and viewable. I think that having the ability to upload to the "other" category is good, but it seems to only be useful for the uploader, for documenting his or her own collection of photos. I, as a former science teacher, take the time to upload meteorite photos (hopefully) for the use of young people doing science projects, for the purpose of documenting for collectors the appearance of meteorites from certain localities, and for trying to present the highest possible photo detail for enjoyment and study by those that do not have access to similar specimens themselves.

Anyway, just my thoughts on the meteorite classification subject. I'll of course conform to whatever the Mindat editors specify. Granted, there are meteorite websites such as "The Meteorite Encyclopedia" to which the photos could be uploaded. However it seems a shame for non-iron meteorite photos to languish unviewed in remote corners of Mindat, since they can actually teach us much about the geology and mineralogy of our planetary and asteroidal neighbors, as well as the interplanetary material from which the earth itself formed.

Cheers

Mike Roarke :-)

9th Mar 2012 09:02 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder

Michael, we are working on better classification systems.

2nd Jul 2012 00:01 UTCPavel Kartashov Manager

Can somebody explain to me by simple words, why some meteorites are recognized as "martian"?:-S Why exactly martian? What such special we know about Mars, what allow us to do such attribution?;-)

From my point of view, it is idiotizm of the same sort as attributing of Kaidun meteorite to Fobos.:-X We NOTHING know about Fobos geology, geochemistry or mineralogy.

2nd Jul 2012 01:02 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

The reasons for believing that these meteorites came from Mars were summarized in the following paper: Treiman, A.H. et al. (2000) The SNC meteorites are from Mars. Planetary and Space Science 48 (12–14), 1213–1230.

2nd Jul 2012 01:36 UTCPavel Kartashov Manager

Thank you Alfredo!

I red the article.

From my point of view, it is too early to do such resume from these scant and unconvincing facts.

Now this is mainly question of faith. And this theory with big part of possibility is wrong similar to "Dry Moon theory" or modern "Moon formation theory".

In other words, for the moment this isn't a science, this is religion.(td) And this religion, similar to other religions, has its own fanatics. Sometimes well paid fanatics.;-)

2nd Jul 2012 13:32 UTCBart Cannon

Wikipedia has a good summary of the evidence used for the determination that a 100 or so meteorites collected on Earth are from Mars.

Lots of speculative science by smart people, but we don't have one here to examine that we are certain is collected direcly from Mars.

Unlike the Moon Rocks.

My first electron microprobe, and ARL EMX-SM came from NASA Huntsville. It analyzed the first Moonrocks. I recently gave it away after failing to find a space museum that wanted it. It is a beautiful thing. When you open the hatch you expect to see Jaques Cousteau huddled down in there.

I expect to be tied to the new owner foverever. Like it was our child since he wants to get it running again.

I have received at least two suspected meteorites for analysis every month since 1984 from hopeful amateurs. Not one was a meteorite, and not once have I billed for the inspection.

In high contrast are the expert amateurs who want me to put their real and rare meteorites into the modern meteorite classifaction scheme.

Modern meteorite classifaction is actually harder than identifying amphiboles since mineralogy needs to be done AND integrated by concentration of each phase, plus other fussing. I don't do those anymore, either. I send those people to the experts, and I apologize to those experts at this time.

Bart

2nd Jul 2012 20:15 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager

"From my point of view, it is too early to do such resume from these scant and unconvincing facts."

Pavel: as a meteorite non-specialist, I don't think it's sufficient to read just one paper on this issue and form an immediate opinion.

2nd Jul 2012 23:59 UTCPavel Kartashov Manager

Uwe, all this branch of science is speculative and will be only speculative up to obtaining of REAL information on martian geology, geochemistry and mineralogy.

From the most common point of view, how do you think, will gas composition of modern basalts (for example) close to our atmosphere composition? Why meteorites with ages in thousands millions years should to have any relation to modern composition of martian atmosphere?

You should to understand clear, who and why writing these articles. These investigations are good only for positive press for organizations, where such investigations are made. So it is simple to obtain scientific grants for such investigations. This situation is quite far from real science.

You are young men, and apparently you will see time, when we'll obtain real rock material from Mars. I am think, all these "martian" speculations will look only as foolish, not funny joke in those times.

What about collectors, I am understand if somebody pay a lot of money for rare type of meteorites, because they are really rare. But if he spent these money only by the reason, that these meteorites are martian (and wouldn't waste his money in other case), I don't understand him.

Verily, if somebody want to be deceived, he will be deceived.

Jolyon, in my oppinion, it would be politically wrong step, to use this photo as POTD on mindat.

3rd Jul 2012 00:05 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

A bit off-topic, but one meteorite researcher told me he thought it entirely possible that some meteorites could represent extremely ancient Earth rocks - stuff no longer recoverable on Earth itself - that were kicked off the planet by impacts early in its history, on extremely elliptical orbits, and can eventually fall back after billions of years! I don't know enough astrophysics to tell whether this would be really possible or just fantasy.

3rd Jul 2012 00:15 UTCPavel Kartashov Manager

Alfredo, this sounds much more realistic than these martian ravings.

3rd Jul 2012 03:17 UTCŁukasz Kruszewski Expert

Hi to all!

A very interesting discussion :-)

Recently I've obtained a tiny chunk of a meteorite that is told to be from Loonah. But have no idea if its possible to check if its provenance is true. One thought is isotopic analysis, as far as I remember. This reminds me a comparison, done for Ti isotopic composition, between Lunar and terrestrial material and implications for the origin of The Moon. Second thing might be the presence of seifertite, as a signature of impact metamorphism, but here's my question: couldn't seifertite form when a meteorite impacts the Earth? Or isn't it present in sites like the one in Trinity Co. ?

Cheers!

Luke K.

3rd Jul 2012 04:09 UTCPavel Kartashov Manager

Hi Lukasz!

Here you confuse meteorite with asteroid. Meteorites usually has too low mass and speed (they are connected during fly through atmosphere) in moment of meeting with Earth. Probably seifertite able to form during intermeteoritic impacts in open space, where they move with cosmic velocities.

In any case, presense of seifertite isn't sign of Lunar origin of a meteorite.

For me, the best and the most obvious evidense of Lunar origin is presence of KREEP basalts clasts (with tranquilityite) in meteoritic breccia.;-) Pesence of 6-7 native elements together (especially with big difference in melting/vaporizing temperatures Cr-Sn, W&Mo-Zn etc.) also is good sign for Lunar specimens. This is more simple to observe by usual equipment, than isotopic shifts.

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