Twannberg (meteorite)

The Twannberg meteorite is the largest meteorite that has been found in Switzerland to date.

The first fragment (15.9 kg) of the meteorite was found on May 9, 1984 near Twann in the canton of Bern . To date (August 2016) over 600 fragments with a total weight of over 72 kg have been found. (A large part of it is exhibited in the Natural History Museum in Bern .) The case occurred around 160,000 years ago, the stray field is over 5 km long.

It is the first meteorite stray field discovered in Switzerland and the only iron meteorite of the IIG class to be discovered in Europe . There are only six of the category with a particularly low nickel content worldwide. They come from the first thousandth of the history of the solar system.

See also

• List of meteorites in Switzerland

literature

• Beda A. Hofmann, Silvio Lorenzetti, Otto Eugster, Urs Krähenbühl, Gregory Herzog, Feride Serefiddin, Edwin Gnos, Manuel Eggimann and John T. Wasson: The Twannberg (Switzerland) IIG iron meteorites: Mineralogy, chemistry, and CRE ages. In: Meteoritics & Planetary Science , 44 (2009), pp. 187-199 ( PDF; 7.3 MB ).

Web links

• Description from the Natural History Museum in Bern
• Photos of Swiss meteorites
• Entry in the database of the Meteoritical Bulletin

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Twannberg Treasure , NZZ, August 19, 2016