Complete Slice of Bencubbin

THE NAMESAKE OF A RARE AND IMPORTANT GROUP OF METEORITES

Bencubbin is the namesake of an extremely rare group of meteorites: the Bencubbinites. Like the other Bencubbinite in the sale (Gujba: See Lot 79), Bencubbin resulted from the violent collision of two different types of meteorites — an iron meteorite and a stony chondrite — which then collapsed together again to form this otherworldly-looking mixture of carbonaceous chondrite and iron-nickel. Given its mix of both stony and iron elements, it was originally classified as a stony-iron when it was found in 1930 on the western edge of the Australian Outback, northeast of Perth. However, given our more recent understanding of how this meteorite was formed, scientists gave it a classification all its own (which it now shares with just 25 other meteorites).

This slice in particular has played an important role in meteoritical science: on the non-display side, one can see where researchers cored a high-metal chondritic clast out of the slice. The presence of such a clast within Bencubbin suggests that high-metal carbonaceous chondrites (CH) and Bencubbin-like chondrites (CB) share a genetic relationship — namely, that they are all the product of the same superheated, impact-generated, metal-enriched gas that condensed on the surface of a stony asteroid.

REFERENCES:

Meteoritical Bulletin Entry for Bencubbin