Nuevo Laredo meteorite, Nuevo Laredo Municipality, Tamaulipas, Mexicoi

Regional Level Types
Nuevo Laredo meteorite	Meteorite Fall Location
Nuevo Laredo Municipality	Municipality
Tamaulipas	State
Mexico	Country

Eucrite, monomict
Found 1950, 500 g

A single stone found in 1950 has turned out to be emblematic of an important subset of the Eucrite meteorite class. Like most of the other monomict Eucrites, Nuevo Laredo is mildly brecciated and largely equilibrated and, bulkwise, mineralogically dominated by pyroxene and plagioclase. Nuevo Laredo's dominant mineral is pigeonite (~60 vol%) with minor amounts of exsolved ferroan augite. Plagioclase - mostly, but not entirely - of nearly equilibrated bytownite composition - constitutes roughly one third of the bulk. Minor constituents such as Apatite, Chromite, Cristobalite, Ilmenite, Quartz, and Troilite have been reported in the more readily available literature. Nuevo Laredo has received some additional attention because it is compositionally characterized by limited variations of incompatible elements despite considerable variations in Mg/(Mg+Fe) ratios (Warren & Jerde, 1987). While this 'Nuevo Laredo trend' has been found in several other Eucrites, it has not been found in other Eucrites which formed at similar times and depths. One is thus lead to conclude that the Eucrite planet body had significant variations — region-wise and depth-wise — whose implications continue to draw further attention.

Like most Eucrites and related members of the HED clan (Howardites-Eucrites-Diogenites), Nuevo Laredo is an ancient rock (~4.55 billion years old). Unless and until new details emerging from high resolution laser-fluoridated oxygen isotope studies suggest otherwise, Nuevo Laredo should probably be considered a 'normal' member of the HED clan and, thus, a very likely meteorite fragment of the asteroid 4 Vesta.

NOTE: Coordinates of the MetBull page were slightly changed, since they placed it in neighbouring Texas.

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