Brenham is a pallasite meteorite found near Haviland, a small town in Kiowa County, Kansas, United States. Pallasites are a type of stony–iron meteorite that when cut and polished show yellowish olivine (peridot) crystals. The Brenham meteorite is associated with the Haviland Crater.

History

In 1949, a collector named H.O. Stockwell discovered a mass of 453.6 kg, known at the time as "The World's Largest Pallasite Meteorite." In October 2005, geologist Philip Mani and meteorite hunter Steve Arnold located and recovered the largest fragment ever found of Brenham: a single pallasite mass of 650 kg.

Classification and composition

Brenham is an anomalous pallasite (Pallasite-an).

Specimens

The 650 kg mass found by Mani and Arnold is currently housed in a private collection in Texas. The 453.6 kg mass discovered in 1949 is called The Space Wanderer and is on display at The Big Well in Greensburg, Kansas. It was found, and excavated using hand tools, on the Ellis Peck farm, east of Greensburg, Kansas. A large collection of Brenham meteorites, along with numerous fragments weighing a total of 8,500 pounds, were once housed at the now-closed Kansas Meteorite Museum and Nature Center in Haviland, Kansas.