¹Chi Ma,^2,3Alan E. Rubin
American Mineralogist 107, 1030-1033 Link to Article [http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/AmMin/TOC/2022/Abstracts/AM107P1030.pdf]
¹Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, U.S.A.
²Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1567, U.S.A.
³Maine Mineral & Gem Museum, 99 Main Street, P.O. Box 500, Bethel, Maine 04217, U.S.A.
Copyright: The Mineralogical Society of America

Zolenskyite (IMA 2020-070), FeCr2S4, is a new sulfide mineral that occurs within troilite, with
clinoenstatite and tridymite, in the matrix of the Indarch meteorite, an EH4 enstatite chondrite.
The mean chemical composition of zolenskyite determined by electron probe microanalysis, is
(wt%) S 43.85, Cr 35.53, Fe 18.94, Mn 0.68, Ca 0.13, total 99.13, yielding an empirical formula of
Fe0.99Mn0.04Ca0.01Cr1.99S3.98. The ideal formula is FeCr2S4. Electron backscatter diffraction shows that
zolenskyite has the C2/m CrNb2Se4-Cr3S4-type structure of synthetic FeCr2S4, which has a = 12.84(1) Å,
b = 3.44(1) Å, c = 5.94(1) Å, β = 117(1)°, V = 234(6) Å3, and Z = 2. The calculated density using the
measured composition is 4.09 g/cm3. Zolenskyite is a monoclinic polymorph of daubréelite. It may be
a high-pressure phase, formed from daubréelite at high pressures (several gigapascals) and moderate
temperatures in highly shocked regions of the EH parent asteroid before becoming incorporated into
Indarch via impact mixing. Zolenskyite survived moderate annealing of the Indarch whole-rock. The
new mineral is named in honor of Michael E. Zolensky, an esteemed cosmochemist and mineralogist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, for his contributions to research on extraterrestrial materials,
including enstatite chondrites.

¹Hadrien A.R. Devillepoix et al. (>10)
Meteoritics & Plaentary Science (in Press) Open Access Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.13820]
¹School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, 6845 Australia
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

On June 19, 2020 at 20:05:07 UTC, a fireball lasting 5.5s was observed above Western Australia by three Desert Fireball Network observatories. The meteoroid entered the atmosphere with a speed of 14.00±0.17  km  s−1 and followed a 58 ° slope trajectory from a height of 75 km down to 18.6 km. Despite the poor angle of triangulated planes between observatories (29°) and the large distance from the observatories, a well-constrained kilo-size main mass was predicted to have fallen just south of Madura in Western Australia. However, the search area was predicted to be large due to the trajectory uncertainties. Fortunately, the rock was rapidly recovered along the access track during a reconnaissance trip. The 1.072 kg meteorite called Madura Cave was classified as an L5 ordinary chondrite. The calculated orbit is of Aten type (mostly contained within the Earth’s orbit), only the second time a meteorite was observed on such an orbit, after Bunburra Rockhole. Dynamical modeling shows that Madura Cave has been in near-Earth space for a very long time. The dynamical lifetime in near-Earth space for the progenitor meteoroid is predicted to be ~87 Myr. This peculiar orbit also points to a delivery from the main asteroid belt via the ν6 resonance, and therefore an origin in the inner belt. This result contributes to drawing a picture for the existence of a present-day L chondrite parent body in the inner belt.

¹P. Rochette,²N. S. Bezaeva,³P. Beck,⁴V. Debaille,⁵L. Folco,¹J. Gattacceca,⁶M. Gounelle,⁷M. Masotta
Meteoritics & Planetary Science (in Press) Link to Article [https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.13825]
¹Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, IRD, INRAE, CEREGE, 13545 Aix-en-Provence, France
²Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, 19, Kosygin Str., 119991 Moscow, Russia
³Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, 38400 Grenoble, France
⁴Laboratoire G-Time, Université Libre de Bruxelles, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
⁵Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy
⁶IMPMC, CNRS – UMR 7590, Sorbonne Université, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, 75005 Paris, France
⁷Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

During the systematic magnetic susceptibility survey of the Paris Museum Australasian tektite collection, we identified three previously overlooked occurrences of volcanic glass that resembles tektites, based on anomalous magnetic properties, high water content, the presence of microcrystals, and anomalous chemical composition. These occurrences are from the Phu Yen province in south-central Vietnam (two rhyolitic glass fragments) and from the Philippines: one from northern Luzon Island (a basaltic rounded etched glass), one from Santa Mesa near Manilla (a dozen small rounded rhyolitic gravels). The two occurrences in the Philippines are quite similar to previously described volcanic glasses from the nearby Pagudpod and Nagcarlan localities, respectively. The rhyolitic glass specimens from the Phu Yen province are the first documentation of a geological occurrence of obsidian in Vietnam. This work is a warning note that glass samples with anomalous properties found among tektite collections may correspond to volcanic pseudotektites instead of real tektites with anomalous composition. The basaltic glass sample from the Philippines locally shows microcrystalline quench textures previously unknown in natural samples. These findings may also be of interest for archeologists involved in glass artifacts sourcing.