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DMNS Meteorite Collection

Slice of a pallasite meteorite

Our friends at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, led by Dr. James Hagadorn, the Curator of Geology at the museum, recently released a fine 36-page publication The Meteorite Collection of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. It contains a fascinating history of the collection with back stories on some of the many specimens, along with a reference list and a full catalog of the collection. It’s available as a free pdf download, but the paper copy is well worth the $2.71 price-point (how do they manage to sell it for so little??).

Broken piece of Cañon City meteorite (DMNH EGT.165), crashed through the roof of a garage in Cañon City, Colorado, 1973. A patch of black fusion crust surrounding an interior dominated by lighter-colored minerals. Photo credit: R. Wicker for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
Canyon Diablo meteorite (DMNH EGT.25.086), Coconino County, Arizona, specimen ~20 cm long. Donor: Dean Gillespie. Photo credit: R. Wicker for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
Stony-iron meteorite (DMNH EGT.53.0), Glorieta Mountain, Santa Fe County, New Mexico. This pallasite bears the characteristic regmaglypt (scoop-shaped melting) pattern and bluish-brown fusion crust formed during atmospheric entry, specimen is ~34 cm long. Donor: Dean Gillespie. Photo credit: R. Wicker for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
Etched slab of the Puente del Zacate meteorite (DMNH EGT.103), Mexico, illustrating typical Widmanstätten (octahedral crystal structure) pattern typical of iron meteorites. Specimen ~9 cm wide. Photo credit: R. Wicker for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
Slice of a pallasite meteorite, illustrating large olivine (peridot) crystals in a matrix of nickel-iron minerals. This specimen, known as the Brenham meteorite (DMNH EGT.23.0), is from Haviland, Kansas, and is ~25 cm wide. Photo credit: R. Wicker for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
A selection of meteorite specimens in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science collection.

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Citations

Hagadorn, James W., Emerald J. Spindler, Ada K. Bowles, and Nicole M. Neu-Yagle. Denver Museum of Nature and Science Report 17: The Meteorite Collection. Vol. December 11, 2019. Denver Museum of Nature and Science Report SR-17. Denver, CO: The Denver Museum of Nature and Science, 2019.

Categories

Geology

Tags

citation, DMNS, geology, meteorites, RockTalk, third-party