International Society for Meteoritics and Planetary Science

This database has been constructed and is maintained by the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society. The primary function of this database is to provide authoritative information about meteorite names. The correct spelling, complete with punctuation and diacritical marks, of all known meteorites recognized by the Meteoritical Society may be found in this compilation. Official abbreviations for many meteorites are documented here as well. The database also contains status information for meteorites with provisional names, and listings for specimens of doubtful origin and pseudometeorites. In addition, this database is a clearinghouse for basic information about each meteorite, including the classification, place and year of discovery, whether if was observed to fall, references to catalogs in which the meteorite is described, and known synonyms that may be encountered in the literature. The catalogs that are indexed here, including the Catalog of Meteorites from the Natural History Museum in London, the commercial program MetBase, the Antarctic Meteorite Newsletter, and the Meteoritical Bulletin contain detailed information about the meteorites, including narratives of the discovery, mineralogy, petrology , specimen locations, chemical and isotopic composition, and references to the literature. A seconday purpose of this database is to provide an interface to map services for the display of geographic information about meteorites. The primary source of information in this database is the Catalogue of Meteorites. It is considered the authoritative source of information on meteorite names up to the time of its last publication (2002). Data from the Catalogue have been supplemented by the more recent compilation in "MetBase" (v7.1, 2005). Issues of the Meteoritical Bulletin that post-date MetBase 7.1 will be used to provide information on the most recent meteorite names approved by the Nomenclature Committee. In cases where data in the Catalogue and MetBase differ, both are listed in the present database. These two compilations both rely on the Meteoritical Bulletin for information on new meteorites. The reasons for disagreement are varied, and may include typographical errors or attempts by the authors to incorporate literature data (especially on classification) that post-date the original entry in the Meteoritical Bulletin. No attempt is made here to arbitrate these discrepancies. Instead, a "recommended" value is given, which is based solely on the opinions of the compiler of the present database. 1. Name. Official names recognized by the Meteorite Nomenclature Committee are shown in green rows, and contain the word "Official" in the status column. These names may be used in all publications of the Meteoritical Society, punctuated and with diacritical marks as shown. The exception to this is for some characters that cannot be displayed in this application; these are indicated in the Notes field at the far right. 2. Abbreviation. Officially recognized abbreviations for meteorite names are shown in the Abbreviation column. These are the preferred abbreviations for use in Meteoritical Society publications, with punctuation and spacing as shown. Abbreviations always have a space between the place-name abbreviation and the numerical portion of the name, except in the cases of (1) Antarctic meteorites collected between 1976 and 1981 by the US or teams including the US, where the letter A replaces the space; and (2) Antarctic meteorites collected by Japanese teams, where a hyphen replaces the space. Note that abbreviations are not the actual names of the meteorites, even for Antarctic meteorites for which the use of the abbreviation is widespread. 3. Status. The status of names is derived primarily from the Catalog of Meteorites and the Meteoritical Bulletin, where: "Official" indicates a formally recognized name; "Doubtful" usually indicates that a lack of specimens or unavailability of specimens to scientists casts doubt on the existence of actual recovered meteorites; "Pseudo" indicates that the name refers to an object that has been proven NOT to be a meteorite, and "Provisional" indicates that the name has been assigned by the Nomenclature Committee, but formal approval has not been granted. Some meteorites of doubtful or pseudo status were taken from MetBase. 4. Fall. Meteorites classified before 2015 have one of two entries in the Fall column: Fall - the meteorite was recorded in MetBull or older catalogs as a fall; Find - the meteorite was recorded as a find; Starting in 2015 (MetBull 104), there are 5 categories of falls and finds: Confirmed fall; Probable fall; Find, possible fall; Find, doubtful fall; Find - just like older finds. 5. Year. The year of the find or fall. For meteorites of unknown provenance, this field may also contain the year of purchase. If alternative years are shown, this indicates disagreement between the two sources used for the compilation (The Catalog of Meteorites and MetBase). 6. Type. The Type field shows the classification of the meteorite. If the meteorite was published in both the Catalogue of Meteorites and MetBase (see columns NHMCat and MetBase), both classifications will appear if they do not agree. If the meteorite was just published in one of these sources, the classification from that source will be listed. If the meteorite was published in neither, the classification comes from the Meteoritical Bulletin (approved names) or from unreviewed reports (provisional names). 7. Meteoritical Bulletin. The number of the Meteoritical Bulletin in which the name was published. 8. Antarctic. Antarctic refers to issues of Antarctic Meteorite Newsletter (AMN), published by Johnson Space Center, unless the reference starts with a J, in which case it refers to Meteorite Newsletter (MN), published by the National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo. 9. Latitude / longitude. Geographical coordinates of meteorites are used to produce links to maps.