[meteorite-list] Christian's and Hanno's Munich Chondrite Breccia

[bernd.pauli at paulinet.de]

Hello Listees and Listoids,

Gorgeous chondrite with beautiful bull's-eye chondrules (bleached chondrules
indicative of aqueous processes on its parent asteroid). Like David, I don't
think the dark "inclusions" are carbonaceous but rather shock-melted pockets
of the surrounding matrix material. I think so because the clasts and fragments
within look the same as the clasts and fragments outside the dark clast. Although
my first impression was "Wow, lots of chondrules!", a closer look clearly shows
several more highly metamorphosed matrix areas where chondrule boundaries
become blurred and indistinctive (bluish-gray areas). Hanno's "kohlig-01.jpe"
shows a similar but less disturbed area about one cm to the right of this dark
inclusion. It looks almost like a mirror image; because it is less disturbed, you
can easily recognize the matrix components shining through. The overall texture
and abundance of chondrules reminds me of Sayh al Uhaymir 001 (Oman), which
would make it an L4/5 chondrite.

Jeff K. wrote that he has only ever seen these dark inclusions in Type-3's
and Christian's and Hanno's Munich chondrite breccia does indeed resemble
Jeff's and my NWA 2490 and NWA 2933 specimens, but, if the Munich chondrite
is really an L3, I would  g u e s s (!) it's something close to L4, something
like L3.8 or L3.9.

What is a bit of a puzzle to me, is, apart from Christian's megachondrule (possibly a
mixture of different pyroxenes: enstatite, pigeonite) is that most of the chondrules are
relatively small. This would point toward a classification as an H-chondrite. Now, in
view of the few larger chondrules + the megachondrule in Christian's slice, we may be
looking at an H/L chondrite.

I'm really looking forward to hearing more about this bluish-black, filigrane network
inside Christian's megachondrule. I have no hunch what that might be. It must be a
pleasure to look at a thin section of this part of the chondrite in polarized light!!!

Christian, Hanno, thanks for sharing these pictures and, please, keep us
informed about the classifiction results and about this weird megachondrule.

Chon-drool-itically,

Bernd