Howardites

Howardites are named for Edward Howard, a renowned British chemist of the 18th century and one of the pioneers of meteoritics - have a look at our history of meteoritics. They are nearly as rare as diogenites, and there are only about 50 members to this group if we exclude all probable pairings.

Consisting primarily of eucritic and diogentic clasts and fragments, howardites are polymict breccias. However, they also contain dark clasts of carbonaceous chondritic matter, other xenolithic inclusions, and impact melt clasts, indicating a regolith origin for the members of this group. The howardites represent the surface of Vesta, a regolith breccia, consisting of eucritic and diogenitic debris that was excavated by the large impact that created the enormous crater near Vesta's south pole. These fragments have been mixed with parts of the chondritic impactor, and this mixture has been subsequently pulverized and metamorphosed by smaller impacts and the solar wind to form an entirely new type of rock called regolith. Similar regoliths cover the surface of the Moon, and as with the howardites, these regolith breccias display high values for noble gases that have been implanted into the rock by the solar wind. Our own planet never formed any analogous rocks because it is protected by an atmosphere and magnetic field, both protecting us from a continuous meteorite bombardment and the destructive radiation of the solar wind.

Renowned members of the howardite group are the witnessed falls of Bialystok from Poland, Kapoeta from Sudan, and Pavlovka from Russia. Recently, several new howardite finds have been reported from the hot deserts of Africa and Asia, e.g. Dar al Gani 779, one of the most affordable howardites on the collectors market. We recently recovered another new howardite from the deserts of Northwest Africa that will be published as soon as a preliminary scientific analysis has been completed. >> top...

Le Teilleul Howardite Year fell: 1845 Country: France Mass: 780 gr
				Le teilleul Nice endcut with crust ! 8.36 gr Price on request