Iron Meteorite

iron meteorite, any meteorite consisting mainly of iron, usually combined with small amounts of nickel. When such meteorites, often called irons, fall through the atmosphere, they may develop a thin, black crust of iron oxide that quickly weathers to rust. Though iron meteorites constitute only about 5 percent of observed meteorite falls, they are relatively easy to distinguish from terrestrial rock and last longer in soil than do stony meteorites; thus, they are found more often than stony or stony iron meteorites. (The latter, containing stone and iron in about equal amounts, are the rarest group of finds.)

Iron meteorites are composed of two minerals, nickel-poor kamacite and nickel-rich taenite, which often occur together. The interlocking crystals of the two minerals combine to form a characteristic arrangement, the Widmanstätten pattern, which indicates the relatively low pressure at which iron meteorites are formed. Historically, irons have been grouped according to their crystal structure, which can be revealed through etching a polished cross section of the meteorite with dilute acid. There are three groups grading into one another: hexahedrites, octahedrites, and ataxites. Hexahedrites are usually made up entirely of kamacite and lack the Widmanstätten pattern. Octahedrites contain both kamacite and taenite and constitute the largest group of iron finds. Most ataxites, which are the rarest group, are pure taenite; some ataxite specimens contain up to 69 percent nickel. More recently, this structural classification has been superseded by a chemical classification based on abundances of the elements gallium, germanium, and nickel.