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Cabin Creek meteorite, Johnson County, Arkansas, USAi

Regional Level Types
Cabin Creek meteorite	Meteorite Fall Location
Johnson County	County
Arkansas	State
USA	Country

Iron meteorite, medium octahedrite (IIIAB, Om)
Fell, 27 Mar 1886; 48.5 kg

Soon after some incredibly loud sounds and whirring noises, an iron-rich mass was found in a 90 cm deep hole not too far from a very tall, but recently damaged pine tree. The meteorite was soon recognized as an octahedrite because of its Widmanstätten patterns, but it has not been further sliced apart to any extent. Rather, it has been kept relatively intact because of its unusually well-formed pits and regmaglypts. Photographs of the meteorite have appeared in many places as a prime example of a fusion crust (rich in oxidized metal) marked by numerous pits due to the loss of melted troilite. The etched sections reveal dominant kamacite as long lamellae accompanied by a combination of taenite and plessite accounting for perhaps 30 vol% of the meteorite. Troilite is abundant as somewhat irregular nodules while schreibersite is frequently found along grain boundaries. In an early report, Kunz noted the presence of 'carbon' but it is somewhat unclear whether he was referring to graphite or cohenite. Unfortunately, when Buchwald examined the meteorite six or so decades later he had access only to two small near-surface sections.

Cabin Creek is the second of the 11 witnessed falls of IIIAB iron meteorites. Almost all of the (nearly intact) main mass of the meteorite is held at the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna (Wien). The IIIAB irons are the largest group of irons with 299 different members as of mid-December 2014.

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References

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