  The current meteorite taxonomy, a result of two centuries of meteorite
research and tradition, entangles textural and genetic terms in a less than
consistent fashion, with some taxa (like shergottites) representing varied
lithologies from a single putative parent body while others (like pallasites)
subsume texturally similar objects of multifarious solar system origins. The
familiar concept of group as representative of one primary parent body is also
difficult to define empirically. It is proposed that the classification becomes
explicitly binominal throughout the meteorite spectrum, with classes referring
to petrographically defined primary rock types, whereas groups retain a genetic
meaning, but no longer tied to any assumption on the number of represented
parent bodies. The classification of a meteorite would thus involve both a
class and a group, in a two-dimensional fashion analogous to the way Van Schmus
and Wood decoupled primary and secondary properties in chondrites. Since groups
would not substantially differ, at first, from those in current use de facto,
the taxonomic treatment of normal meteorites, whose class would bring no new
information, would hardly change. Yet classes combined with high- or low-level
groups would provide a standardized grid to characterize petrographically
and/or isotopically unusual or anomalous meteorites (which make up the majority
of represented meteorite parent bodies) for example, in relation to the
carbonaceous/noncarbonaceous dichotomy. In the longer term, the mergers of
genetically related groups, a more systematic treatment of lithology mixtures,
and the chondrite/achondrite transition can further simplify the nomenclature.
