Danebury
Collection:
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Fact sheet

Danebury

The Danebury meteorite is an H5 ordinary chondrite weighing 30g that was first recognized as a meteorite in 1989 during characterization of metalworking debris from Danebury, an Iron Age hillfort, in Hampshire, England. Its arrival on Earth has been dated as 2350±120 yr BP, making it contemporary with the period of maximum human activity at the recovery site. Despite its considerable terrestrial residence age, the interior of the specimen is remarkably fresh with a weathering index of W1/2. There is, however, no evidence of human intervention in its preservation. Its near-pristine state is explained in terms of its serendipitous burial during the back-fill of a pit dug into chalk by prehistoric people for the storage of grain. This chance discovery has interesting ramifications for the survival of meteorites in areas having a high pH because of a natural lime content arising as a result of the local geology.

The meteorite contains fairly abundant chondrules. Porphyritic olivine types predominate, but well-developed barred-olivine, radial pyroxene, and crypto-crystalline chondrules are also present. In reflected light large regions of iron-nickel metal and sulphide are clearly visible. The sample is cross-cut by veinlets filled with secondary iron oxides.

The Danebury meteorite is now on public display at the Museum of the Iron Age, in Andover.

See also: 
Pillinger et al. (2014) The Danebury Iron Age meteorite—An H5 ordinary chondrite; from Hampshire, England.Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 49, 946-957. (PDF)

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/metbull.php?code=5512

 

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Map
51.137867, -1.537185
Description:
Danebury
Precision:
Good
About this collection

This Collection consists of meteorites that have fallen in Great Britain and Ireland and which are now preserved in museum collections. We have also included samples of the two known meteorite impact deposits in the UK.

The Natural History Museum in London offers more information about meteorites and meteorite categories; there is more information about its meteorite collections here.

Sample details

Type
meteorite
Category
H5
Rock-forming mineral
olivine
pyroxene
feldspar
troilite
Category guide  
Category Guide
Title
Refers to any word or phrase that appears in the individual rock names. Names are generally descriptive; they allow users to search for broad terms like ‘granite’ as well as more specific names such as ‘breccia’. However, the adjacent descriptions of the specimens captures a wider range of general words and phrases and is a more powerful search tool.
Description
Refers to any word or phrase that appears anywhere in the descriptions of the specimens
Accessory minerals
Minerals that occur in very low abundance in a rock. They are usually not visible with the naked eye and contribute perhapssver, they often dominate the rare elements such as platinum group metals.
Rock-forming minerals
Minerals that make up the bulk of all rock samples and are also the ones used in rock classi?cation.
Timescale
Selecting one or more period, for example 'Jurassic'.
Theme
A term used to group together related samples that are not already gathered into a single Collection. For instance, there is a ‘SW England granites’ theme that includes such rock types as granite, hydrothermal breccia, skarn and vein samples.
Category
A general term used to label a rock sample. It is a useful way of grouping similar samples throughout a collection. Category names are often, but not exclusively, common rock names (e.g. granite, basalt, dolerite, gabbro, greisen, skarn, gneiss, amphibolite, limestone, sandstone).
Owner
The owner of the sample that appears in the collection. For example, NASA owns all the samples that appear in the Moon Rocks collection
We would like to thank the following for the use of this sample: