Lunar Meteorite Compendium

Current Site Section

Why a compendium?

The numbers of lunar meteorites have grown substantially the last few decades - as of January 2024 there are nearly 150 unique lunar meteorite groups that have been officially classified as lunar (see full listing on compendium home page). Sixteen of these are from the US Antarctic meteorite collection, 6 are from the Japanese Antarctic meteorite collection, and the others are from hot desert localities in Africa, Australia, and the Middle East. The total mass of recognized lunar meteorites is >417 kg, as compared to the 21.5, 34.4, 42.3, 77.3, 95.7, and 110.5 kg of rock brought back from the Moon by Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17, respectively (381.7 kg; Vaniman et al., 1991). Because of the mass, diversity and number of lunar meteorites in world collections, it was suggested by CAPTEM and other members of the community that a Lunar Meteorite Compendium be initiated. This is justified for several additional reasons. First, the popularity of Dr. Charles Meyer's Mars Meteorite Compendium provided precedence for initiating a project of this scale. Second, as our community becomes increasingly geared toward sample return missions, the need arises for succinct presentation of information about sample collections. Third, a compendium can serve the reader as a springboard into the extensive peer reviewed literature. And fourth, the many of the books and resources dedicated to lunar materials – Lunar Science: An Apollo perspective (S.R. Taylor, 1982), Basaltic Volcanism Study Project (BVSP, 1981), Origin of the Moon (Hartman, Phillips and G.J. Taylor, 1986), and the Lunar Source Book (Heiken, Vaniman and Phillips, 1991) - all pre-date the recent explosion of lunar meteorites. A few exceptions are the New Views of the Moon and New Views of the Moon 2 books (released in 2006 and 2023, respectively) – lunar meteorites are nicely integrated into many of the chapters of these books (Jolliff, Wieczorek, Shearer and Neal, 2006; Neal et al., 2023). There have been a few journal issues dedicated to specific lunar meteorites, such as ALH A81005 (Marvin, 1983) and MAC 88105 (Lindstrom et al., 1991). Randy Korotev has written a thorough review article regarding lunar meteorites (Korotev, 2005), Korotev and Zeigler (2014) have reviewed Antarctic lunar meteorites, and Joy et al. (2023) have most recently reviewed lunar meteorites. All of these reasons have influenced the curation office at JSC to initiate and then periodically update a Lunar Meteorite Compendium.

Vaniman, D., Dietrich, J., Taylor, G. J., & Heiken, G. (1991) Exp
loration, samples, and recent concepts of the Moon. Lunar sourcebook, 5, 26.

Taylor, S.R., 1982. Planetary science: A lunar perspective (Vol. 3303). Houston: Lunar and Planetary Institute. Basaltic Volcanism Study Project (BVSP) 1981. Basaltic Volcanism on the Terrestrial Planets. Pergamon Press, New York.

Hartmann, W. K., Phillips, R. J., & Taylor, G. J. (1986). Origin of the Moon. In Origin of the Moon.

Lunar sourcebook: A user's guide to the Moon, 1st ed., edited by Heiken G., Vaniman DT, and French BM New York, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Jolliff, B. L., Wieczorek, M. A., Shearer, C. K., & Neal, C. R. (Eds.) (2006) New views of the Moon . Reviews in Mineralogy, Vol. 60, Mineralogical Society of America, Washington DC.

Neal, C. R., Gaddis, L. R., Jolliff, B. L., Lawrence, S. J., Mackwell, S. J., Shearer, C. K., & Valencia, S. N. (2023). New Views of The Moon 2, Vol. 99, Mineralogical Society of America, Washington DC.

Korotev, R. L. (2005). Lunar geochemistry as told by lunar meteorites. Geochemistry, 65(4), 297-346.

Korotev, R. L., & Zeigler, R. A. (2014). ANSMET meteorites from the Moon. 35 Seasons of US Antarctic Meteorites (1976–2010) A Pictorial Guide to the Collection, 101-130.

Joy, K.H., Gross, J., Korotev, R.L., Zeigler, R.A., McCubbin, F.M., Snape, J.F., Curran, N.M., Pernet-Fisher, J.F. and Arai, T., 2023. Lunar meteorites. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, 89(1), pp.509-562.

Marvin U. B. (1983) The discovery and initial characterization of Allan Hills 81005: The first lunar meteorite. Geophysical Research Letters 10, 775-778.

Lindstrom, M. M., Schwarz, C., Score, R., & Masons, B. (1991). MacAlpine Hills 88104 and 88105 lunar highland meteorites: General description and consortium overview. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 55(11), 2999-3007.

What is included?

This compendium includes the following information where possible and available:

• collection and macroscopic details, such as maps and images,
• curation details including any images taken during sample processing and sketches that might help decipher such actions,
• basic petrography, mineralogy and petrology including diagrams, tables, and thin section or hand sample images that help illustrate textures or mineralogy,
• basic major, trace and isotopic geochemistry, again including tables and diagrams that might help to illustrate salient features of a given sample,
• chronologic information and studies, and
• comparisons to Apollo and Luna samples, as well as any relevant spacecraft data.

LUNAR METEORITE COMPENDIUM ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS - 2024

The realization that the number of lunar meteorite samples has grown to >150 (nearly quadrupled since the original 2006 version), and that many of the new lunar meteorites are non-Antarctic, has led to an abridged update that includes a new table of official lunar meteorites and new chapters on more recently recovered lunar meteorites from the US Antarctic meteorite collection – MIL 13317, MIL 090036, MIL 090034/70/75, and DOM 18242. The combined mass of all lunar meteorites is 417.254 kg as of January 2024 – this exceeds the total mass of rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts. In addition to the JSC Antarctic meteorite staff acknowledged below, there have been additional meteorite processors who have contributed in major ways to all the information that is presented in the compendium including Rachel Funk, Mitch Haller, Kellye Pando, Roger Harrington, Curtis Calva and Leslie Young.

LUNAR METEORITE COMPENDIUM ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS - 2013

The Lunar Meteorite Compendium was updated in 2013 largely due to the efforts of John Gruener, who updated the list of samples and masses by rock type. The 2013 version expanded the number of meteorites to 80. The 2013 update retained the "anorthositic", "mingled", and "basaltic" categories, as these are a convenient way to divide the lunar meteorites into simple categories. Of course there is some variation in lithology and geochemistry within these groups and that is mainly captured in rock types, for example as regolith breccia, fragmental breccia, impact melt breccia, as well as polymict or monomict types.

LUNAR METEORITE COMPENDIUM ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS - 2006

Any discussion of lunar meteorites must acknowledge the efforts of Dr. Randy Korotev at Washington University in St. Louis, who has maintained a lunar meteorite website in a timely, responsible, and instructive manner. The compendium was initiated by constructing chapters about the lunar meteorites in the US Antarctic meteorite collection. These have been characterized, processed, and analyzed over 25 years. Cecilia Satterwhite, Kathleen McBride, and Carol Schwarz all provided information and input into the chapters about these samples. In addition, discussions with Gary Lofgren, Larry Nyquist, Chuck Meyer, and Don Bogard have provided insight into the relations between meteorites and Apollo/Luna samples. The second group of samples covered is comprised of lunar meteorites collected by the JARE expeditions, and curated by the National Institute of Polar Research in Tokyo. Thanks are due to Dr. Hideyasu Kojima and the staff of the NIPR for providing information regarding the beautiful and unique samples in the NIPR collection. In addition, discussions with Akira Yamaguchi, Keiji Misawa, Tomoko Arai about particular samples have helped my understanding of their significance. Addi Bischoff, Jutta Zipfel, and Otto Eugster have provided information about other lunar meteorites, especially those from hot deserts. CAPTEM is acknowledged for the interest in this project and for providing much needed reviews of many of the chapters. Cecilia Satterwhite reviewed and proofread many of the chapters and documents comprising the compendium. Alene Simmons typed and formatted all of the lunar meteorite references in the bibliography, many of which were typed originally by R. Korotev for his Lunar Meteorite website. I would like to thank Chuck Meyer of NASA-JSC for his guidance, insights, and rapid feedback on chapters, philosophies, and content. I have renewed appreciation for his Mars Meteorite and Lunar Sample Compendia after completing this initial lunar meteorite compendium on only 42 samples.

LUNAR METEORITE COMPENDIUM DISCLAIMER

As with the martian meteorite compendium, the aim of this compendium is to relate the salient facts about the mineralogy, petrology, geochemistry, geochronology, and isotopic studies of each of the lunar meteorites. Attempts have been made to organize each chapter the same way in the same format so that readers can easily find sections or information they may need. Effort has also been made to attribute the reported results to the original researcher, and anyone utilizing this compendium for a peer-reviewed manuscript should look up and cite the original references, not this compendium or KR. In this way, the researcher will get a better appreciation for the methods, error, and techniques used in various results reported in tables herein. Additionally, a conscious effort was made to not provide or discuss interpretation except where absolutely necessary, and in the introductory chapter. The focus is on summarizing data and what is known about individual lunar meteorites.