CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
What are meteorites?
From meteors to meteorites
Where do meteorites come from?
What are meteorites made of?
Craters
Vredefort impact structure, South Africa
Roter Kamm crater, Namibia
Tswaing crater, South Africa
Lephalale, South Africa
Aspirant craters
An entertaining ‘scam’
IDENTIFYING METEORITES
Key features
Fusion crust
Flow lines
Lipping
Attraction to a magnet
Regmaglypts
Free iron-nickel inside a meteorite
Widmanstatten lines
Neumann lines
Density of a meteorite
Orientation
Falls and finds
Age of meteorites
‘Meteorwrongs’
Beware of hoax meteorites
Where to find meteorites
World meteorites
CLASSIFICATION OF METEORITES
Iron meteorites
Hexahedrites, octahedrites and ataxites
Stony-iron meteorites
Pallasites
Mesosiderites
Stone meteorites
Chondrites
Ordinary chondrites
Carbonaceous chondrites
Achondrites
Martian meteorites
Lunar meteorites
Howardites, eucrites and diogenites
INVESTING IN METEORITES
Value of meteorites
STATUS OF METEORITES IN SOUTHERN AFRICA
Meteorites and the law
SIGNIFICANT METEORITE FALLS OR FINDS
Botswana meteorite – waiting to be found?
Chelyabinsk
Koue Bokkeveld
Gibeon
Hoba
Korra Korrabes
Muonionalusta
Murchison
Seymchan
Sikhote Alin
Thuathe
Tissint
REFERENCES
INDEX