Why have we produced an atlas of meteorites? All three of the authors trained, at some period of their careers, as geologists. And in doing so, we all used the textbook An Atlas of Rock-Forming Minerals in Thin Section by W. S. MacKenzie and C. Guilford (published by Longman in 1980, and reprinted many times since then). Understanding of the formation of terrestrial rocks and the processes these have experienced is enhanced and facilitated by study of thin sections of material; the same is true for meteorites. Textures, mineralogy and mineral chemistry are all revealed by optical study, enabling classification of meteorites into their different classes and groups. Meteorites differ from terrestrial rocks in containing significant quantities of opaque minerals, especially iron–nickel metal – a phase which dominates the mineralogy of iron meteorites. In such circumstances, thin-section work is neither feasible nor useful, and polished mounts for examination under reflected light are appropriate. So we have attempted to produce an atlas of meteorites – but have omitted the rider ‘in thin section’ – to assist with the recognition, identification and classification of meteorites.

We have not been able to include every meteorite (there are about 60, 000 of them!). And we probably haven't included your favourite meteorite, for which we apologize. But we have tried to produce images of all meteorite-‘type’ specimens, and representatives of sequential petrologic types, textures, shock stages and weathering categories. We have also tried to produce images of each thin section at the same magnification in plane- and cross-polarized transmitted light, and plane-polarized reflected light, to enable different features to be highlighted under different illuminations. This has not always been possible – for many of the older specimens, uncovered thin sections were not available, and only covered sections, thick sections or mounts could be photographed. In some cases, where material was not available for loan, curators sent their own images for inclusion; this was tremendously helpful, and we have acknowledged the photographer as appropriate.

We have drawn heavily on published resources, and, we hope, have referenced them wherever appropriate. The SAO/NASA Astrophysical Data System (ADS) was an essential tool for this project, without which we could not have produced the bibliographies for each chapter.