The statement of chemical analyses of stony meteorites and the interpretation of the analyses in terms of minerals

Abstract

In earlier analytical work on stony meteorites the analytical results were given in a number of different ways. Not only the principles, but also the methods used in the calculation of the mineral composition as derived from the chemical analyses, were of a different kind in almost every description of a stony meteorite. The same remarks of course apply to a certain extent also to the older descriptions of terrestrial rocks. The publications on the 'Quantitative [(American) system of[ classification of igneous rocks' (1) and some publications by Henry S. Washington, especially a paper on 'The statement of analytical results of rock analyses' (2), contributed greatly to the unifying of the methods of representing the results of chemical analyses of rocks and calculating their mineral composition. Later on other systems for the statement and calculation of rock analyses have been introduced by other petrologists, especially by Paul Niggli, and all this work, taken together, has greatly contributed to clarification of the different ways in which the results of rock analyses can be stated and made use of in the petrological study of rocks.