Howardites
Field Guides · Ages Adults

The Meteorite Collector's Handbook

Building, caring for and sharing a meteorite collection

Corvanelle Publishing

A meteorite collection can hold pieces of asteroids, Vesta, the Moon and Mars. This handbook explains every major class, from ordinary chondrites to pallasites, through real meteorites such as Allende, Sikhote-Alin, Winchcombe and Tissint. It shows how to check official names and provenance, buy responsibly, detect fakes, and judge what makes a specimen desirable. It sets out meteorite law country by country, stops rust with the chemistry of chloride and humidity, and covers cutting, microscopy, photography, cataloguing, insurance and science, with worked problems, a gazetteer and a timeline.

  • 64,418 words
  • About 348 pages
  • 40 chapters
  • Ages Adults
£9.99

Contents

  1. Preface
  2. Starting a Collection
  3. Specimen Types
  4. Reading a Classification
  5. Ordinary Chondrites
  6. Carbonaceous, Enstatite and Other Chondrites
  7. Chondrules, CAIs and Stardust
  8. Achondrites: Vesta, the Moon, Mars and the Rarities
  9. Collecting Lunar and Martian Meteorites
  10. Irons and Stony-irons
  11. Iron Meteorite Groups for Collectors
  12. Shock and Weathering in Practice
  13. The Ages of a Meteorite
  14. Names, Numbers and the Official Record
  15. Provenance
  16. Buying Responsibly
  17. Fakes, Frauds and Mistakes
  18. What Makes a Specimen Desirable
  19. The Law
  20. Ethics and the Commercial Collecting Debate
  21. Storage and Rust Prevention
  22. Display
  23. Cutting, Polishing and Etching
  24. Looking Closer: Lenses, Microscopes and Thin Sections
  25. Photographing Meteorites
  26. Cataloguing a Collection
  27. Insurance, Valuation and Selling
  28. From Fireball to Strewn Field
  29. Searching for Meteorites
  30. Contributing to Science
  31. Recent Falls and Hammers
  32. Meteorites of Britain and Ireland
  33. Related Collectables: Tektites, Impactites and Cosmic Dust
  34. Great Collections and What They Teach
  35. Model Collections
  36. Worked Problems for Collectors
  37. Gazetteer of Notable Meteorites
  38. Timeline of Meteoritics and Collecting
  39. Checklists and Further Study
  40. Glossary