Odessa, Texas, IAB Iron Meteorites for Sale

Location: Odessa, Texas, U.S.A. (31° 43'N, 102° 24'W)

Found: 1922. Time of Fall: Late Pleistocene probably about 50,000 years ago.

Type: Iron, IAB-MG. Structural Class: Coarse octahedrite, Og, Widmanstatten bandwidth 1.7 ±0.25 mm.
Metal analysis: 7.35% Ni, 0.48% Co, 0.25% P, 0.5% S, 0.2% C, 75 ppm Ga, 285 ppm Ge, 2 ppm Ir.

Description: The Odessa meteorites and crater are similar in many ways to the Canyon Diablo meteorites and crater. Not only are they the same type--Group IAB coarse octahedrite--but they both fell in the prehistoric American Southwest. The first meteoritic iron from Odessa was described in 1922. The Odessa Crater was first recognized in the late 1920s as meteoritic in origin by Daniel Barringer, the lawyer-mining engineer that first recognized the origin of the Canyon Diablo Crater.
Systematic exploration was done in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Both trenching and drilling were done. The work was of such intensity that well-known meteorist Harvey Nininger was led to exclaim "Odesecration" at the sight of the work. Magnetometer surveys revealed several small subsidiary craters.

In recent years, the area of the crater has bee scoured by meteorite hunters equipped with metal detectors. The result was a fairly plentiful supply of specimens.

The main Odessa crater is about 165 meters is about 535 feet (165 meters) across. The bottom of the crater is only about 6 feet (2 meters) below the plain and the rim rises only about 6 feet above the plain. The crater is filled with sand to a maximum depth of 30 feet. Four smaller craters were found near the main crater. All of these were completely filled. Efforts to find a large meteorite mass in the crater failed. more than one hundred holes were drilled without result. Thus, scientist hypothesize that the mass disintegrated on impact.

Link to Meteoritical Bulletin Database.


# OT4-3	# OT5-4	# OT5-6	# OT234-2	About Scale: Each photo has a small one centimeter cube. That's a little less than a half inch on a side. The coin above is a US dime.
Weight: 4.3 gm	Weight: 5.4 gm	Weight: 5.6 gm	Weight: 234.2 gm
Features: Fragment	Features: Fragment	Features: Fragment	Features: Fragment
Price: sold	Price: sold	Price: sold	Price: sold


# OT5-8	# OT6-0	# OT6-1	# OT6-7	# OT51-8
Weight: 5.8 gm	Weight: 6.0 gm	Weight: 6.1 gm	Weight: 6.7 gm	Weight: 51.8 gm
Features: Fragment	Features: Fragment	Features: Fragment	Features: Fragment	Features: Etched end
Price: sold	Price: sold	Price: sold	Price: sold	Price: sold


# OT65-2	# OT86-1	# OT7146-1
Weight: 65.2 gm	Weight: 86.1 gm	Weight: 7146.1 gm
Features: Etched end	Features: Etched end	Features: Individual
Price: sold	Price: sold	Price: sold