Fracture mechanism of Henbury meteorite by separation along surfaces of shear faulting

Abstract

THE smallest Henbury meteorite crater contained¹ a massive iron that had broken into four pieces weighing 132.7, 54.4, 10.9 and 2.3 kg, respectively. When these four pieces were excavated from the depths of the crater they were found to be still juxtaposed to one another. We have studied a 5 kg, 20×40 cm slice (BM 1932, 1359) taken from the largest of these pieces. We have also prepared and studied sections cut from a number of pieces of ‘shrapnel’ from a Henbury crater, weighing about 100 g and purchased from the American Meteorite Laboratory.