[meteorite-list] International Brachinite Day - Hug yourBrachinite!

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:12:38 +0200
Message-ID: <003001ca11e8$f653c390$177f2a59_at_name86d88d87e2>

Hi Martin,

many thanks for bringing this article up again,
because it illustrates best to the newer collectors, in what for paradisiac
times they're currently still living with all the new desert finds.

"But of course back then the pickings of such
things were few."

And still they are.

It may be the case, that the nostalgic or the novice collector feels
overwhelmed by the bombardment of desert numbers,
but if he would spend only a few minutes of his time,
to ask the Bulletin database, he would see, that with the rare types,
we're speaking - despite the desert rush - still of a small handful
of identifiable finds of a quite limited total mass.

Brachinites - shall we check up quickly?

There are the classics:

Brachina
203grams
Eagle Nest
154grams


The Semi-classics, already with strewnfield numbers

Huges 026 maybe paired with the orphan Nova 003 360g & 187g
Reid 013 and 027 likely paired 330g & 19.7g


Antarctica, there we have

Allan Hills 84025
4.6g
Elephant Moraine 99402/99407 180.5g & 60g
Lewis Cliff 88763
4.1g


And the other desert finds, where a lot will be paired with eachother,
which we will know in a later phase.

NWA 595 196g
NWA 3151
1500g
NWA 4872
3000g
NWA 4874
28g
NWA 4876
130g
NWA 4882
3100g
NWA 4969
180g
NWA 5191
26.5g

(That one Mike took, isn't listed yet. NWA 5471 534g)

So one easily can see, that the Sahara finds are in no way arbitrary and
confusing.

And one has to see the enormous advantage and advancement the NWA-finds
mean.

For the collector.

Today due to the finds of the decade, a collector hasn't anymore to mortgage
his whole collection to get a brachinite sample into his collection.
The conservative collector maybe will argue that the NWAs are lacking the
flair of history and find circumstances.
But where are the differences? That what Martin wrote applies to the
NWA-brachinites too. They are like Brachina, Eagles Nest, Hughes and Reid
finds from the hot deserts. Whether the accompaniment that one was found by
Blinky Bill and the other by Ali Mohammed makes such a difference?
If you look at the pictures of Eagles Nest it is a quite weathered stone,
seen the quality of the material, therefore the African desert brachinites
certainly do not rank behind the Australian desert brachinites.
In fact, some of the NWA brachinites are considerably fresher and of better
quality than an Eagles Nest.

But most important for the collector is, that the NWAs enable them to own a
brachinite at all. As you can see, all other brachinites are from
Antarctica or from Australia. Which means, even if there would be some left
of the tiny tkws, there would be no possibility to get an export permit, due
to their rarity and importance.
And that material, which can get free from old collections, would be quite
unaffordable compared to the NWAs.

For the scientist.

What for a choice would he or she have, if he wants to do research on
brachinites and there wouldn't be any NWAs?
Two of the three Antartic finds are so tiny, that it would be very unlikely
that one would get granted a sample.
And with the Australians - I guess it would be quite unlikely too, that the
Australian collections would give out material.
And, especially the curators, if they would like to get one of the
Australians into the collection, they would have to give 20 or 40times more
material in exchange from their institute in swapping without the NWA-finds,

cause the brachinites wouldn't have the somewhat lower value and rarity,
they do have today due to the NWA-finds. And which curator likes to have to
give out material from his collection....


The brachinites are in this regard again an excellent example,
how No Good it would be to abstain voluntarily from the Sahara finds
and to restrict searching there.

You have to keep in mind, how rare they are.
No brachinite is among the 3000 finds in the 10 years of Oman hunt.
Antarctica yielded only 3 different, half a pound.
All historic, semi-historic have 1.1kg - 4 different only.

But NWA is weighing 8.7kg and offers additional representatives of that type
to research.

Well and perhaps are reading also some this list here, who in former times
stated, that science couldn't compete with the private "market", because
private activities would have made meteorites so expensive.

Brachinites are again an excellent proof, that this judgement is an untrue
prejudice.

Take that brachinite, Mike took, for the price we asked for the whole load,
One could pay the primary costs (hence not including equipment and
infrastructure) for having one searching team one and a half DAY on the ice.
And they would have get twice as much brachinitic material, than ANSMET,
NIPR, EUROMET and PRIC altogether had found in 32 YEARS.

So all in all you see, Martin, that brachinites still are an epitome of
"fewness"
And we never should forget, that these few additional kilograms are the
result of hundreds of people hunting around the globe and of millions of
hours of searching.

And I think, especially because we had in recent times these really uncomely
conversations on the list, that we could overcome that all as well as the
strange articles sometimes to be found in media,
because and certainly not only in the field of brachinites,
the performance and service done by the meteorite hunters, nameless and
well-known, by the dealers, amateurs or professionals, by the collectors,
small and big,
is enormous and commands highest respect from all.

.....and because the stuff is so amazingly rare and strange,
I can understand Mike's enthusiasm about his slice very well :-)

Best!
Martin


 

        

                                             

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Dark
Matter
Gesendet: Freitag, 31. Juli 2009 07:27
An: Galactic Stone & Ironworks
Cc: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] International Brachinite Day - Hug
yourBrachinite!

Hi Mike and All,

Back about seven years ago, I wrote an article about a brachanite
landing in my collection. But of course back then the pickings of such
things were few.

Here's the link:

http://www.meteorite-times.com/Back_Links/2002/August/Accretion_Desk.htm

Best,

Martin



On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 2:37 PM, Galactic Stone &
Ironworks<meteoritemike at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi List!
>
> To celebrate the 462nd annual International Brachinite Day, I thought
> I might share a few photos of my latest acquisition - NWA 5471.
>
> Many of you on the List have seen this meteorite before, but for those
> who have not, here is some background information on it...
>
> I received this 1.74 gram slice from Martin Altmann at Chladni's
> Heirs. ?Thanks again Martin! :)
>
> Brachinite is very difficult to photograph because it's almost
> entirely composed of olivine - which is tricky to get proper lighting.
>
> Some research suggests that brachinites originate from the
> olivine-rich asteroid 289 Nenetta. ?At first, it was thought that
> brachinites were Martian members of the Chassignite family - because
> Chassigny contains a similar amount of olivine. But oxygen isotopic
> age studies revealed that olivine is far too old to be Martian and it
> shows some affinities to the eucrite group.
>
> Brachinites are rather boring to look at under typical lighting, but
> it reveals it's true beauty under cross-polarized light - click on the
> following link to see :
>
> http://www4.nau.edu/meteorite/Meteorite/Brachinite.html
>
> Martin's description of this brachinite is apt -
>
> "Brachinites rank among the most enigmatic meteorites, they are
> primitive dunitic rocks, though their isotopes and petrology are so
> heterogeneous, that so far no satisfying theory about their origins
> and formation could have been established. Brachinites are exceedingly
> rare, the combined weights of all finds in history do not exceed
> 10kgs, making this class five times rarer than lunar meteorites. NWA
> 5471 is weakly shocked and moderately weathered. "
>
> This specimen is part of my new collecting strategy - nothing under 1
> gram unless it's Lunar or Martian. (or similarly cost-prohibitive).
> In the past, I would have been happy with a 100mg specimen. ?This
> particular small slice is 1.746 grams.
>
> Photo links :
>
>
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj24/Meteoritethrower/Meteorites/brachini
te/brach-1.jpg
>
>
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj24/Meteoritethrower/Meteorites/brachini
te/brach-2.jpg
>
>
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj24/Meteoritethrower/Meteorites/brachini
te/brach-3.jpg
>
> Best regards and clear skies,
>
> MikeG
> --
> .........................................................
> Michael Gilmer (Florida, USA)
> Member of the Meteoritical Society.
> Website - http://www.galactic-stone.com
> Personal Site - http://www.glassthrower.com
> FaceBook - http://www.facebook.com/galacticstone
> MySpace - http://www.myspace.com/fine_meteorites_4_sale
> Twitter - Twitter - http://twitter.com/GalacticStone
> eBay - http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/maypickle
> ..........................................................
> ______________________________________________
> http://www.meteoritecentral.com
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> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
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>
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Received on Fri 31 Jul 2009 10:12:38 AM PDT