The Meteoritical Society is the organization that, through its Nomenclature Committee, gives internationally recognized names to meteorites, and then publishes these names in two places, The Meteoritical Bulletin and the Meteorite Bulletin Database.
The Meteoritical Bulletin is the primary and official source for information about new meteorites. The Meteoritical Bulletin contains listings of all newly recognized and reclassified meteorites, as accepted by the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society. It is published formally once or twice a year, but its actions are made available more frequently through the Meteorite Bulletin Database.
Where to find The Meteoritical Bulletin
The Meteoritical Bulletin is published in Meteoritics and Planetary Science.
You can receive automatic electronic updates (an RSS news feed; see below for the link) that indicates when new meteorites are approved.
Past issues of the Bulletin are available in the Bulletin Archive.
The Meteoritical Bulletin Database
The Meteoritical Bulletin Database is a searchable electronic resource that contains information about all known meteorites, and mirrors the information on new meteorites published in The Meteoritical Bulletin. The Meteorite Bulletin Database is edited by Jeff Grossman.
The primary function of the Meteoritical Bulletin Database is to provide authoritative information about meteorite names. The correct spelling, complete with punctuation and diacritical marks, of all known meteorites recognized by the Meteoritical Society maybe found in this compilation. Official abbreviations for many meteorites are documented here as well. The database also contains status information for meteorites with provisional names, and listings for specimens of doubtful origin and pseudometeorites.
In addition, the database is a clearing house for basic information about each meteorite, including the classification, place and year of discovery, whether if was observed to fall, references to catalogues in which the meteorite is described, and known synonyms that may be encountered in the literature. The catalogs that are indexed, including the Catalogue of Meteorites from the Natural History Museum in London, the commercial program MetBase, the Antarctic Meteorite Newsletter, and The Meteoritical Bulletin contain detailed information about the meteorites, including narratives of the discovery, mineralogy, petrology, specimen locations, chemical and isotopic composition, and references to the literature. A secondary purpose of the database is to provide an interface to map services for the display of geographic information about meteorites. The database also links to Google Maps and Google Earth for the display of find locations.
Automatic updates of announcements concerning new meteorites are available electronically. You may subscribe to them from the MetBull Database home page or by using the direct link to the RSS feed.
The database has been constructed and is maintained by the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society. For contact information, refer to the FAQ on meteorite names.