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metal veins in El Hammami

When I purchased a piece of El Hammami, Ed told me that it was an unusual
meteorite because there were fine veins of metal in it.  It does seem quite
heavy for its appearance and friable quality.  The veins are very difficult
to see in a broken specimen, to the point that I can't be sure I'm seeing
them.  I believe a slice would show them more clearly, assuming they exist.
The fusion crust has some small ridges in it, about 2mm wide.  Following
those ridges into the broken internal 'surface', there are linear
'discontinuities' that follow the direction of the ridge in the fusion
crust.  There are also a few fine darker lines in the broken surface, about
1/2 mm wide & 10 mm long.  I took a diamond file to one of these, and see
many 'glints' of shiny surface in the smoothed area.  They look metallic,
but are only about 1/2 mm by 1/2 mm, so again I'm not positive; and they
might be arranged in a linear pattern, but no metal vein (a continuous line
of metal) is visible.
So, I can believe there are metal veins in El Hammami, but can't observe
them with any certainty.

>Metal veining has been reported in Hamada du Draa.  This is a fairly 
>unusual characteristic, especially in relatively unshocked chondrites
>like this.  Can you see this feature in your specimen, and, if so, do
>you see anything similar in El Hammami?

_______________________________________
Peter Abrahams   telscope@europa.com
the history of the telescope, the microscope,
    and the prism binocular