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Dendritic troilite |
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| Meteorite, Chico, L6, impact-melt. |
| Large, dendritic inclusions
greater than 2 cm in diameter are rare in chondrites. The transition from a solid to a dendritic texture is likely attributed to impact vaporization and recondensation. Impact-generated shock waves deposit some of their original kinetic energy as heat, producing impact-melt textures and, in some meteorites, altering the mineralogy. The meteorite pictured below is Chico, an impact-melt, L6 chondrite found in 1954 in New Mexico as a single 104.8 kg stone mass. The inclusion is a dendritic sulfide—troilite. The troilite nodule vaporized from the intense heat of the shock event and was not absorbed into the surrounding mass. Upon cooling, it recondensed within the physical confines of the preexisting nodule, resulting in the dendritic texture seen in the image. |
| Figure 1. Scale bar 1.5 mm. |
| Meteorite, Chico, L6, impact-melt. |
| Dendritic troilite. The troilite inclusion was originally primary but the dendritic residuum is secondary. |
| Figure 2. Scale bar 12 mm. |
| Chico, L6 impact-melt chondrite, full slice #### grams. Note the delination of the thermal melt wave across the slice. |
| Figure 3. Scale bar 6 mm. |
| Chico, two lithologies. |
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