The Many Faces of Viñales, a Witnessed Meteorite Fall in Cuba 2019

Viñales is a witnessed meteorite fall, one of the rarest natural phenomena that human beings experience. A huge fireball was seen falling across the sky over the province of Pinar Del Rió in Cuba on February 1, 2019 at approximately 1:17 pm local time. The meteorite’s fiery entry into Earth’s atmosphere came with several sonic booms and caused the ground to rumble for 15-20 seconds, which led local residents to believe a plane had crashed. A long smoke trail was also captured on video.

It was also captured by the GOES-16 weather satellite, both fireball and sulfur dioxide atmospheric plume (NASA). They estimate the explosion to be equivalent to 1,400 tons of TNT.

The resulting meteor shower fell on Viñales Valley, a forested area and a UNESCO world heritage site; traditional methods of agriculture have survived there for hundreds of years, along with rich cultural elements like architecture, crafts, and music. Here, local residents recovered meteorite individuals like this one that had broken through asphalt roads, the ground or rooftops.

Viñales individuals are notable for their deep black somewhat shiny fusion crust, typical of fresh fall stones collected quickly. The crust comes from heating from the Earth’s atmosphere at Mach 26+ and is very thin, like a layer of paint, so older meteorite falls tend to have the crust removed from terrestrial wind erosion.

The fresh fall recovery allowed for detailed analysis of the Vinales fusion crust — it flashed heated to 1650°C from atmospheric heating and felt shock pressure >10 GPa. “The Viñales meteorite’s obvious black fusion crust show layered structure under optical and electronic microscope. The fusion crust can be divided into two layers from the surface to the interior. The Layer I is totally opaque under transmission light and has a width from 50 to 200 μm. Many vesicles are observed in the Layer I, especially in the area adjacent to the Layer II. The Layer II is semi-transparent in transmitted light and the width of it is 100–300 μm. The fractures in and between mineral grains in the Layer II are full of metal phases, whereas the adjacent chondritic portion remains intact. Vesicles in the Layer I are the result of degassing and are quenched and stop migrating relatively soon after formation. The Layer II is definitely affected by the high temperature of Layer I, in which troilite and Fe-Ni metal are melted and fill the cracks in and between silicate minerals, which causes the Layer II are semi-transparent under transmission light of optical microscope.”

The stones’ light grey interior can be seen where the crust has broken in the meteorites’ traverse through the atmosphere to Earth. The reddish smears are laterite clay, a clay-rich in iron and aluminum. When sliced, Viñales exhibits striking, dark shock veins and visible chondrules, melt rock inclusions, and grains of troilite, kamacite, and other minerals. Several specimens were collected for scientific research.

Viñales has been tested and classified as an L6 low-iron Chondrite.

Dimensions: 3.25″ x 3.15″ x 2.5″ and 797g