The intrinsic appeal of meteorites has attracted the attention of several IsoTrace staff members over many years. The interest extends from mineralogical and chemical features to such day-to-day needs as the recognition of new meteorites, a task shared locally with mineralogists at the nearby Royal Ontario Museum. This entails scrutinizing new arrivals for tell-tale marks such as black fusion crusts, chondrules, and the fluted or pitted surfaces typical of many iron meteorites. Samples which received their preliminary characterization at the lab included the St.-Robert chondrite (fell in Quebec, 1994), the Toronto iron (recognized 1997) and the Kitchener chondrite (fell in Ontario, 1998).

Once a meteorite is identified as such, it is important to classify it in order to determine its potential scientific significance. See a recent example of the microscopic characterization of an ordinary chondrite, provisionally named "Yafa" [illustrated with 8 photos, total 265 kb] which fell in Yemen in 2000. Yafa is identified as an H5 (S2) stone, perhaps most notable for the widespread presence of the Ni-rich alloy tetrataenite, ideal formula FeNi.

IsoTrace staff maintain links to the Meteorites and Impacts Advisory Committee to the Canadian Space Agency (MIAC). For further clues on meteorite identification, click here.