A rain of L-Chondrites in the Thorsberg quarry at Kinnekulle, southern Sweden

Abstract. About forty meteorites have been found in the first systematic search for fossil meteorites in an active quarry in Lower/Middle Ordovician marine lime-stone in southern Sweden. The total original mass of these meteorites amounts to 7.7 kg. They represent at least 12 different falls over a seafloor area of 6000 m2 during 1.75 million years. Thereby the quarry is one of the most meteorite dense areas known in the world. Geochemical analyses indicate that all or most of them are ordinary chondrites and probably L-chrondrites. Obviously the flux of meteor-ites was one to two orders of magnitude higher as today. This matter of fact re-flects possibly a collision of asteroids in the Ordovician which leads to the higher bombardment of the earth. 1