Description
Meteorite (Muonionalusta) from Sweden
The Muonionalusta meteorites come from a very remote area in the northern Taiga, where they were preserved by permafrost and glaciers, many thousand years. About 1 million years ago a massive, extraterrestrial iron mass fell in the northern area of today’s Sweden. Upon entering the earth’s atmosphere there must have been a huge explosion that ripped the asteroid into numerous fragments. The pieces then went down on a large stray field north of the Arctic Circle.
Scandinavia experienced many ice ages, therefore thick and heavy ice sheets pushed repeatedly from north to south. As a result, the normal pattern of the scattered field has been changed. The meteorites found were classified as iron meteorite, fine Octahedrite Class IVA. The Muonionalusta meteorites are among the meteorites with the most beautiful etch pattern. Cut and etched revealing perfect Widmannstätten pattern, and sometimes inclusions of rare minerals such as Troilite or Stishovit.
