Lake House meteorite
Collection:
Click the microscope button to view a thin section for this sample.
Microscope
Click the microscope button to view a thin section for this sample.
Microscope

Fact sheet

Lake House meteorite

Lake House is an Elizabethan country house dating from 1578, in Wilsford-cum-Lake in Wiltshire. For over 80 years a large 90 kg meteorite sat on the doorstep of the house. When the house was sold in 1991 the meteorite was moved to the Natural History Museum and it stayed there for 30 years until scientists at the Open University, Milton Keynes began working on it. It is now on display in Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum.

The meteorite is an ordinary chondrite (H5) and is thought to have been buried in a prehistoric burial mound before being excavated by Edward Duke (1779-1852). It is Britain's biggest meteorite.

See: Pillinger et al. (2011) The meteorite from Lake House. 74th Annual Meteoritical Society Meeting, Houston, Texas. Download pdf here: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/metsoc2011/pdf/5326.pdf

http://www.salisburymuseum.org.uk/news/largest-meteorite-fall-britain

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/metbull.php?code=56143

Additional images
  • Lake House meteorite
  • Lake House meteorite
  • Lake House meteorite
  • Lake House meteorite
  • Chalk patch on base of meteorite
Map
51.065025, -1.79738
Precision:
Poor
About this collection

Sample details

Type
meteorite
Category
H5
Rock-forming mineral
olivine
pyroxene
Accessory minerals
troilite
metallic iron
hematite
Category guide  
Category Guide
Title
Refers to any word or phrase that appears in the individual rock names. Names are generally descriptive; they allow users to search for broad terms like ‘granite’ as well as more specific names such as ‘breccia’. However, the adjacent descriptions of the specimens captures a wider range of general words and phrases and is a more powerful search tool.
Description
Refers to any word or phrase that appears anywhere in the descriptions of the specimens
Accessory minerals
Minerals that occur in very low abundance in a rock. They are usually not visible with the naked eye and contribute perhapssver, they often dominate the rare elements such as platinum group metals.
Rock-forming minerals
Minerals that make up the bulk of all rock samples and are also the ones used in rock classi?cation.
Timescale
Selecting one or more period, for example 'Jurassic'.
Theme
A term used to group together related samples that are not already gathered into a single Collection. For instance, there is a ‘SW England granites’ theme that includes such rock types as granite, hydrothermal breccia, skarn and vein samples.
Category
A general term used to label a rock sample. It is a useful way of grouping similar samples throughout a collection. Category names are often, but not exclusively, common rock names (e.g. granite, basalt, dolerite, gabbro, greisen, skarn, gneiss, amphibolite, limestone, sandstone).
Owner
The owner of the sample that appears in the collection. For example, NASA owns all the samples that appear in the Moon Rocks collection
We would like to thank the following for the use of this sample: