[meteorite-list] NWA 2828 EL3 Fossil Meteorite and Pairings

From: Michael Farmer <meteoriteguy_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 08:02:47 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <564272.31657.qm_at_web33101.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Thank you Greg! This should put this to bed and prove
exactly what I said! Matteo's piece is simply another
piece of this large meteorite. The photos are
identical. I am still trying to find my large box of
fragments of this meteorite, so that I can cut one and
load it on ebay, to show how identical to Matteo's
piece they are. He is just eyeballing meteorites and
giving them his own classifications. Let this be a
very good warning to those who buy from him! Who
knows, all of that Affianello he is selling, could be
La Criolla, or NWA XXXXX. Once someone is well known
for pulling scams, switching material, making up
classifications, then all material they sell should be
suspect. I will never buy one gram of meteorite from
Matteo, he already burned himself by "finding" all
those amazing falls in Italy in a year or so, they
just rained down on beaches and in his friend's
backyards. Amazing luck, or NWA's? You decide, the
nomcom already has!
If you buy from this guy, after all the warnings, all
the scams, all the controversy, then you deserve what
you get.
Michael Farmer



--- Greg Hupe <gmhupe at tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

> Dear List Members,
>
> Since some members do not remember the very lengthy
> thread regarding NWA
> 2828, the first in this series, and recent pairings,
> here is the most up to
> date description and an abstract I have for NWA
> 2828, an EL3 Fossil
> meteorite originally classified as an aubrite, but
> not publicly sold as such
> because of ongoing scientific work being performed
> at the time. I held off
> for almost a year before offering this material
> publicly so the most
> accurate classification could be conducted. I am
> very glad I did as I would
> not want the financial headache (or moral headache)
> attached to such
> irresponsible acts being performed by
> self-classifiers and other
> "too-quick-to-make-a-buck" "dealers":
>
> >>
> NWA 2828 Very Rare EL3 Fossil Meteorite
>
>
>
> NWA 2828, an unusual EL3 Chondrite "Fossil
> Meteorite" occurring as cobbles
> in a terrestrial conglomerate. We first called this
> as a "Paleo-Meteorite"
> but a consensus in the scientific community prefers
> the term "Fossil
> Meteorite". This enstatite-rich meteorite was first
> discovered in Algeria
> and/or Western Sahara in 2005. It was originally
> thought to be an aubrite,
> but scientific examination of new material has
> revealed the presence of
> features that require revision of that
> classification. Several stones
> contain sparse (<1 vol.%) but very distinct round,
> radial pyroxene
> chondrules up to 3 mm across (image 2), as well as
> rounded, fine-grained
> aggregates up to 6 mm across composed mainly of
> either enstatite or sodic
> plagioclase (image 3). The dominant primary phase in
> NWA 2828 is essentially
> pure enstatite, which forms stubby prismatic grains.
>
>
>
> New information on the find site in Algeria
> indicates that the NWA 2828
> material was excavated from a subsurface deposit,
> and terrestrial rhyolite
> pebbles and sandy matrix are attached to several NWA
> 2828 stones (image 1).
> The pebbles cling to them via iron oxide/carbonate
> cement. The oxides are
> finely layered and alternate between magnetite and
> hematite, with inter
> layers of saline deposits. This suggests times of
> past wet to dry periods in
> a river or salt lake. However, the iron oxides
> contain nickel in a range of
> up to 6.5 percent, which strongly suggests that the
> pervasive 0.5-2 mm
> cavities in the NWA 2828 stones are the result of
> solution etching. The
> scientists who conducted the studies have concluded
> that incoming solutions
> replaced the primary nickel-iron grains with salts,
> carbonates, etc., while
> outgoing solutions formed nickel-rich iron oxides on
> the exterior of the
> stones, and cemented all of the neighboring
> terrestrial debris to the
> meteorite stones.
>
>
>
> All this evidence for acidic alteration and
> precipitation in cavities
> combined with the terrestrial rhyolite pebbles
> cemented by sand seems to
> indicate that the NWA 2828 stones are partially
> altered EL3 chondrite
> fossil-meteorite cobbles in an ancient fluvial
> conglomerate. In such a
> river environment with intermittent high water
> volumes it is quite possible
> over time for original metal grains to be completely
> dissolved out of
> cobble-sized EL3 chondrite fragments. EL3
> chondrites are extremely rare
> meteorites - other than this new specimen, only
> three Antarctic and one, (or
> possibly two), African examples are known, making
> EL3 chondrites rarer than
> aubrites!
>
>
>
> Photograph of a 24.9g NWA 2828 slice with rhyolite
> pebble (image 1):
>
> http://www.lunarrock.com/nwa2828/nwa2828pebble.jpg
>
>
>
> Photograph of magnified radial pyroxene chondrule
> (image 2):
>
>
http://www.lunarrock.com/nwa2828/nwa2828chondrule.jpg
>
>
>
> Photograph of magnified whitish enstatite-rich clast
> (image 3):
>
> http://www.lunarrock.com/nwa2828/nwa2828clast.jpg
>
>
>
> Photograph of a 14.3g complete slice of NWA 2828
> (image 4):
>
> http://www.lunarrock.com/nwa2828/nwa2828slice.jpg
>
>
>
> Oxygen isotope results were obtained at the Carnegie
> Institution in
> Washington D.C. Further studies are underway on NWA
> 2828 including bulk rock
> chemical analysis at the University of Cologne, and
> attempted measurement of
> terrestrial age using carbon isotopes at the
> University of Arizona. The
> Total Known Weight (TKW) for NWA 2828 is officially
> recorded as 34,186 grams
> consisting of many stones. With pairings, the
> combined weight is in access
> of 100kg.
>
>
>
> Copyright Hup? Collection 2006
>
> <<
>
>
>
> >>
>
> NWA 2828 ABSTRACT:
>
> Eos, Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, 87, Fall Meet.
> Suppl., Abstract P51E-1247
> (2006)
>
>
>
> EL3 Chondrite (not Aubrite) Northwest Africa 2828:
> An Unusual
> Fossil-meteorite Occurring as Cobbles in a
> Terrestrial Conglomerate
>
>
>
> Scott M. Kuehner1, Anthony J. Irving1, Ted E.
> Bunch2, James H. Wittke2 and
> Gregory M. Hup? 1Earth & Space Sciences, University
> of Washington, Seattle,
> WA 98195, USA, irving at ess.washington.edu, 2Dept. of
> Geology, Northern
> Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA.
>
>
>
>
>
> Although we recently classified NWA 2828
> as an aubrite [1], our
> examination of new material (now comprising over 120
> stones totaling >27 kg)
> requires revision of that classification. New
> information on the find site
> in Western Sahara indicates that these stones were
> excavated from a
> subsurface deposit, and we have found terrestrial
> rhyolite pebbles and sandy
> matrix attached to several NWA 2828 stones (see
> images at
> http://www.ess.washington.edu/meteoritics). Thus
> this is a rare example of
> a paleo-meteorite or "fossil" meteorite. Some
> stones contain sparse (<5
> vol.%) but very distinct round, radial pyroxene
> chondrules
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Received on Thu 04 Jan 2007 11:02:47 AM PST