[meteorite-list] Mercury Meteorites - the short list

[Bernd V. Pauli]

Hi All,

I would like to remind you of Russ Kempton's article in "Meteorite!"

Kempton R. (1996) Abee: More Questions Than Answers
(METEORITE! Magazine, Pallasite Press, November, 1996):

"Curiously, the study of light reflected from Mercury's surface
 indicates that it is iron-rich and oxygen-poor - characteristics
 shared with E chondrites".*

... or with some of their achondritic counterparts: the aubrites.

* In 1998, our late Richard Norton wrote in RFS:

"Their low oxygen content suggests that they formed even closer
 to the Sun than the H-chondrites, possibly inside Mercury's orbit."

NORTON O.R. (1998) Rocks From Space, p. 190, E-Chondrites:

But Mercury's mean density of about 5.4 g/cm^3 is a major problem
because enstatite chondrites have a density of about 3.4-3.7 g/cm^3.

NWA 011 is also mentioned in the "short list" but here's another obstacle:

...its high FeO content, a circumstance which implies a parent body with
a small metallic iron core. Mercury is believed to have a large iron core.

Niquist et al. (2003) suggest that NWA 011 is of asteroidal rather than
Mercurian origin.

Love S.G. et al. (1995) think it highly likely that there are Mercurian
meteorites in our collections although they should be rare (probably
less than 1% of the amount of Martian meteorites in our collections)*.

*Love S.G. et al. (1995) Recognizing mercurian
 meteorites  (MAPS 30-3, 1995, pp. 269-278).

Best wishes from rainy
Southern Germany,

Bernd