Pultusk is an H5 ordinary chondrite

meteorite A meteorite is a rock (geology), rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical ...

which fell on 30 January 1868 in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

near the town of

Pułtusk Pułtusk () is a town in Poland, by the river Narew. Located north of Warsaw in the Masovian Voivodeship, it has a population of 19,224 as of 2023. Known for its historic architecture and Europe's longest paved marketplace ( in length), it is a po ...

. The event has been known as the stony meteorite shower with the largest number of pieces yet recorded in history. Made up of rocky debris, it consists of

pyroxene The pyroxenes (commonly abbreviated Px) are a group of important rock-forming inosilicate minerals found in many igneous and metamorphic rocks. Pyroxenes have the general formula , where X represents ions of calcium (Ca), sodium (Na), iron ( ...

olivine The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron Silicate minerals, silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of Nesosilicates, nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle (Earth), upper mantle, it is a com ...

chondrules deployed in massive

plagioclase Plagioclase ( ) is a series of Silicate minerals#Tectosilicates, tectosilicate (framework silicate) minerals within the feldspar group. Rather than referring to a particular mineral with a specific chemical composition, plagioclase is a continu ...

Kamacite Kamacite is an alloy of iron and nickel, which is found on Earth only in meteorites. According to the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) it is considered a proper nickel-rich variety of the mineral native iron. The proportion iron:ni ...

is also reported.

History

The fall occurred on January 30, 1868, at 7:00 pm near the town of

, about northeast of

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

. Thousands of people witnessed a large fireball followed by detonations and a very large shower of small fragments falling on ice, land and houses within an area of about 127 sq km (appx. 78 sq. miles). The estimated number of fragments was 68780.This statement has been contradicted by authors and scholars in the field of meteorite studies who estimated the number of fragments to be over 100.000, while other researchers have mentioned a misreading during the analysis of the chemical components and that a more precise number would be something no more than 3.000 stones. → → The fragments ranged in weight from half a gram to (the largest specimen). The overall estimated mass of the meteorites was . The vast majority of the fragments were small (few grams), known as ''Pultusk Peas''. The Pultusk meteorite is the largest stony meteorite shower ever recorded.

Composition and classification

Pultusk is brecciated and contains two varieties of

xenolith A xenolith ("foreign rock") is a rock (geology), rock fragment (Country rock (geology), country rock) that becomes enveloped in a larger rock during the latter's development and solidification. In geology, the term ''xenolith'' is almost exclusi ...

s embedded in a dark brecciated matrix. It is a veined and brecciated

chondrite A chondrite is a stony (non-metallic) meteorite that has not been modified by either melting or planetary differentiation, differentiation of the parent body. They are formed when various types of dust and small grains in the early Solar Syste ...

with abundant xenoliths with various degrees of recrystallisation. Petrologic type 5 xenoliths prevail, so it has been classified as H5: an ordinary chondrite significantly thermally metamorphosed and with the contours of the

chondrule A chondrule (from Ancient Greek χόνδρος ''chondros'', grain) is a round grain found in a chondrite. Chondrules form as molten or partially molten droplets in space before being Accretion (astrophysics), accreted to their parent asteroids ...

s frequently difficult to distinguish. The main minerals are

and

bronzite Bronzite is a member of the pyroxene group of minerals, belonging with enstatite and hypersthene to the orthorhombic series of the group. Rather than a distinct species, it is really a ferriferous variety of enstatite, which owing to partial alt ...

troilite Troilite () is a rare iron sulfide mineral with the simple formula of FeS. It is the iron-rich endmember of the pyrrhotite group. Pyrrhotite has the formula Fe(1−x)S (x = 0 to 0.2) which is iron deficient. As troilite lacks the iron deficiency ...

and

chromite Chromite is a crystalline mineral composed primarily of iron(II) oxide and chromium(III) oxide compounds. It can be represented by the chemical formula of Iron, FeChromium, Cr2Oxygen, O4. It is an oxide mineral belonging to the spinel group. The ...

are also present.

Chemical composition

The chemical elements and the respective quantity found in the Pultusk meteorite have been described as SiO₂ 36.44 wt%, TiO₂ 0.18 wt%, Al₂O₃ 1.88 wt%, Cr₂O₃ 0.37 wt%, FeO 9.48 wt%, MnO 0.25 wt%, MgO 23.75 wt%, CaO 1.82 wt%, Na₂O 0.83 wt%, K₂O 0.09 wt%, P₂O₅ 0.22 wt%, Fe 16.02 wt%, Ni 1.61 wt%, FeS 5.97 wt%, Fe (metallic) 17.62 wt%, Ni (metallic) 9.13 wt%, Fe as iron sulfide 3.80 wt%, S as iron sulfide 2.17 wt%, total content of iron 27.19 wt%.Diakonov, Kharitonova (1961)

Gallery

File:Pultusk meteorite - Museum of Technology in Warsaw.jpg, Pultusk fragment, Museum of Technology in Warsaw File:Pultusk meteorite small.jpg, Pultusk fragment, 74.2 g File:Meteoryt Pułtusk.jpg, Picture taken at the temporary exhibition at the

Museum of Technology, Warsaw National Museum of Technology is a museum in Warsaw, Poland. It was established in 1955. It is located in the Palace of Culture and Science, Palace of Culture & Science. Exhibits include motorbikes, aeroplanes, 19th century musical boxes, and h ...

Additional information

Notes

References

External links

Museum of the Faculty of Geology of the Warsaw University: Pultusk

Meteorites: An Introduction
on

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

* {{Authority control Meteorites found in Poland 1868 in Poland 1860s in science 1868 in the Russian Empire January 1868