The Interior and Exterior of a Stone from Mars —NWA 8716 ("Jrifiya")

Meteorites from Mars are among the most exotic substances on Earth—less than 300 pounds are known to exist, and a substantial fraction is unavailable to the public. The determination of Martian origin is the result of research by scientists throughout the world. In addition to the more arcane markers in common, most Martian meteorites exhibit an unusually young crystalline age (indicating that they cannot be from asteroids, which all cooled about 4½ billion years ago). Many Martian meteorites also contain water-bearing minerals, consistent with the evidence for water on Mars. The smoking gun of Martian origin appeared in 1995 when minute amounts of gas found in tiny glassy inclusions of two suspected Martian meteorites were analyzed—and it was found to match perfectly with the signature of the Martian atmosphere as reported by NASA’s Viking missions. As is the case with lunar meteorites, the delivery mechanism is believed to be an asteroid impact that jettisoned material off the Martian surface into an Earth-intersecting orbit. NWA 8716 (known in the field as “Jrifiya”) is the 8716th meteorite to be catalogued following its recovery in the North West African (NWA) grid of the Sahara Desert. NWA 8716 most likely originated about 180 million years ago as an olivine-bearing basalt flow that intruded layers of pre-existing rocks in the Martian crust.

Christie's would like to thank Dr. Alan E. Rubin at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles for his assistance in preparing this catalogue note.


Literature:
See entry in the Meteoritical Bulletin Database: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/metbull.php?code=61356