Meteorites for Dummies

Stony-iron meteorite

It isn't unusual for money-hungry freelancers to get stuff wrong when posting to content farms. Unfortunately, sometimes the erroneous information is subtle instead of a glaring error; usually misinterpretation due to the writer's unfamiliarity with basic premises of the topic. Take, for instance, Rebekah Richards, writing "Three Major Types of Meteorites" for eHow.com (now living over at Sciencing.com). 

Rebekah gets most of it right. After all, there are plenty of websites aimed at fourth-graders with that inform us that the three types of meteorites are stony, iron, and stony-iron. Duh. Where Richards gets it wrong is where she (mis)informs her readers that,

"Three subgroups of iron meteorites, classified according to nickel content, are hexahedrites, octahedrites and ataxites."

 

Well, no, Becky, that's not correct. You must have... let's say "misread" (instead of "mis-copied") that particular resource. Iron meteorites are not classified on the basis of their nickel content, iron meteorites are separated into three distinct types based on the patterns visible in their Widmanstätten patterns: octahedrites display octahedral (eight-sided) patterns; hexahedrites have six-sided, hexagonal, patterns; and ataxites don't have any patterns at all (the prefix "a-" means "none").  Richards also gets another factoid wrong: "...green pallasite meteorites with pure olivine crystals are known as peridot, a gemstone."

Ummm, no: that's a mangled rewording of a sentence that might have originally read something like, "Green pallasite meteorites are usually peridotite, a rock composed mainly of the mineral olivine." Apparently Richards doesn't know that olivine is a common mineral here on earth, or that much of the planet's mantle is peridotite. But dumbasses never let a little ignorance get in their way, do they! That's why the Antisocial Network awards the Dumbass of the Day, and why Rebekah Richards is today's dishonoree!

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