Northwest Africa XXXX - L3 Ordinary Chondrite (10.5g)

This specimen is a type 3 ordinary chondrite — petrologic type 3 material is the least thermally altered of the ordinary chondrites, meaning it has undergone little to no metamorphism since it formed in the earliest days of the solar system, 4.5 billion years ago. The result is a cut face packed with sharply defined, individually distinct chondrules — the millimeter-scale, once-molten droplets that condensed directly from the solar nebula before ever being incorporated into a parent asteroid.

Type 3 material is prized by collectors and researchers alike precisely because higher petrologic grades (4 through 6) progressively recrystallize and blur these chondrule boundaries through parent-body heating; a well-preserved L3 slice like this one shows chondrules with crisp, well-resolved edges, often in a striking range of textures and colors set against the darker matrix — genuinely one of the most visually compelling cut faces in ordinary chondrite material.

Classification: Ordinary chondrite, L3
Found: Northwest Africa, [year]
TKW: [figure]