Cape York meteorite

The Cape York meteorite (also Cape York meteorite ) is an iron meteorite that was classified as medium octahedrite the group III AB and 91% iron, 7.58% nickel, 19.2 ppm gallium, 36.0 ppm germanium and 5.0 ppm iridium. He is named in the administrative district Avanersuaq after the place of its discovery, the Greenland Cape York, and weighed originally probably 200 t.

The meteorite is about 4.6 billion years old. He was exposed to about 93 million years of cosmic rays. He was separated from his mother body from a much shorter time than other octaedrite chemical group III AB, which generally have a higher irradiation age of about 650 million years ago.

Upon entry into the Earth's atmosphere almost 10,000 years ago the Cape York meteorite broke up over the Melville Bay and produced one of the largest known meteor shower. The elliptical strewn field extends over an area of 100 km x 15 km stretch. The scattering ellipse indicates a direction of flight of the meteorite from northwest ( locality of Thule fragment ) to southeast ( location of Ahnighito - fragment ). The shape of the Cape York meteorite has not yet been reconstructed. It is possible that there are still large sections under the ice or in the sea are.

It previously parts of the meteorite were measured with a total weight of 58 t found. The bulk of the Cape York meteorite weighing 31 tonnes of Ahnighito meteorite. He has exhibited at the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Robert Peary found the meteorite in 1897 in Greenland, and brought him to New York. Besides the Ahnighito are in the American Museum of Natural History two other sections of the Cape York meteorite, " The Woman" (Woman ) with a weight of 3 t and " The Dog " (Dog) with 400 kg of weight.

A total of twelve fragments of the Cape York meteorite are known. 1963 a large fragment of the Cape York meteorite meteorite researchers from the Danish Vagn Buchwald was discovered on the island Agpalilik. The Agpalilik meteorite ( "The Man" ) weighs about 20 tons and is located in the Geological Museum of the University of Copenhagen. Other smaller fragments are, for example, the 3 -ton Savik I meteorite, which was found in 1913 by Knud Rasmussen, of the 48 kg Thule meteorite, discovered in 1955 by geologist Mark Meier ( 1925-2012 ), the 7, 8 kg heavy meteorite Savik II and the 250 kg heavy Tunorput fragment, which was found in 1984 by the hunter Jeremiah Petersen in the sea. By comparing the chemical compositions Vagn Buchwald recognized the membership of a fragment was found in the vicinity of an old Inuit camp on the members of the Ellesmere Island Knud Peninsula in Canada, to the Cape York meteorite. This 1.6 kg heavy fragment, which was given the name Akpohon, was apparently transported by the Inuit over 600 km from the place of his case until his location in Canada.