Description

Handsome Display featuring a specimen of Muonionalusta Meteorite. Case measures 6 inches long by 8 inches high and .75 inches wide. The front of the display is glass.

The Muonionalusta meteorite is classified as fine octahedrite, type IVA (Of) which impacted in northern Scandinavia, west of the border between Sweden and Finland, about one million years BCE.

The first fragment of the Muonionalusta meteorite was found in 1906 near the village of Kitkiöjärvi.  Around forty pieces are known today, some being quite large. Other fragments have been found in a 15.5 mi × 9.3 mi area in the Pajala district of Norrbotten County, approximately 87 mi north of the Arctic Circle. Studies have shown it to be the oldest discovered meteorite impacting the Earth during the Quaternary Period, about one million years ago. It is quite clearly part of the iron core or mantle of a planetoid, which shattered into many pieces upon its fall on our planet.  Since landing on Earth the meteorite has experienced four ice ages. It was unearthed from a glacial moraine in the northern tundra. It has a strongly weathered surface covered with cemented faceted pebbles.