here the well known story of Calcalong Creek (can be found on Rob Elliott's page of Fernlea meteorites)
Calcalong Creek (Wiluna District,Western Australia) Lunar, impact melt
breccia
Found after 1960, recognised 1990:
Total known weight 19g
It's the only lunar meteorite to have a name instead of a number, it's the first non-Antarctic lunarite to be discovered and just look at the incredibly low total known weight! Calcalong Creek is also the best known of all the moon rocks and is likely to remain so, with it's name now firmly in the meteoritical history books.
Calcalong Creek is an impact melt breccia, calculated from the bulk
analysis as:
50% anorthosite, 20% KREEP, 15% Sc-Cr-V and 15% low-Ti mare basalt
- a material found during the Luna 16 mission on the surface of the Moon.
The small 100% fusion crusted rock was probably collected by an Aboriginal
meteorite hunter while searching for specimens of the Millbillillie eucrite
meteorite fall of October 1960. Gold prospector Harry Redford visited the
Wiluna area and found a few dozen Millbillillie eucrites but he was alone
and it was hard going, so he enlisted the help of the local Aborigines
by offering rewards for all Millbillillies recovered. With an army of eagre
hunters working with him, Redford recovered hundreds of Millbillillies
which he later sold to the "Meteorite Man".....Tucson's Robert Haag.
While picking through the many Millbillillie stones, Haag examined
each one carefully and came across a small, completely fusion crusted 19g
stone "that felt different", so he put it aside to examine later.
When he re-examined the stone again, Haag noticed small gas vesicules
on the fusion crust, a rare texture previously seen on only a few other
meteorites. The fusion crust also had a slight greenish tinge which separated
it from the glossy black fusion crusted Millbillillie stones. He ground
a small corner off and noticed small while clasts that he'd seen before
in photographs of moon rocks. Haag took the small stone for expert analysis
and received the following report from W.Boynton and D.Hill at the University
of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Lab.....
"We have analysed the new meteorite by neutron activation analysis and believe it to be of lunar origin based on comparison with other meteorites and samples returned from Apollo landing sites"
It was official - Robert Haag had discovered the first ever lunar meteorite
found outside of Antarctica!!
Haag donated about 6g to science and retained the remainder in his
own magnificent meteorite collection.....
Meteorite hunters have since found a comparatively small amount more
lunar material while scouring the Sahara Desert but Calcalong Creek remains
the
most highly prized of all. It contains both Lunar Highland AND Mare
regions and has the highest known concentration of all KREEP rare earth
elements out of all known lunar material..... including Apollo return samples!!
Couretesy of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University in St.Louis comes the following extract:
"The Calcalong Creek meteorite is the first lunar meteorite to be found
outside of Antarctica. Compositionally, it is unique among lunar
meteorites in having high concentrations of incompatible trace elements,
which indicates that it probably came from the Procellarum region of the
Moon."
http://epsc.wustl.edu/admin/resources/meteorites/calcalong.html
Peter Marmet