[meteorite-list] Meteorite - new issue - Lovina ungrouped iron

From: Darryl Pitt <darryl_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:47:00 -0500
Message-ID: <AA2934F0-F8B0-4B0E-800D-61F2774BAB47_at_dof3.com>

Greetings List,

Svend, many thanks for your kind words below. Mathias, thanks for
providing the web link. And a Happy Thanksgiving to celebrants.

I recently returned from Japan where I had the pleasure of spending
time with Dirk Ross, to whom I am grateful for having helped with the
Macovich web page on Lovina---finalized only the day before Mathias'
post. I am also grateful to Bernd Pauli who helped me with data
rankings which led to a logical framework of comparison.

I am personally aware of two researchers who state Lovina is the most
unique iron meteorite. In terms of morphology and internal structure,
such declarations would appear undebatable. As I've indicated
elsewhere, the ziggurat or pyramidal structures seen are the result of
serendipity: the combination of a meteorite with a high nickel
content and a complexly organized troilite lattice having landed in
the shallows of Balinese tropical waters. Immersing other meteorites
for untold centuries will not result in the presentation seen.

I am going to answer several questions privately received for future
reference:

WEIGHT...AND A VALUABLE LESSON LEARNED -- Upon examination, Lovina was
intact except for a missing end piece. The seller conveyed the end
piece had been removed by the researchers who reported the TKW of
Lovina in "Lunar and Planetary Science" as 8.2 kilograms. As is
evident in the image of the mass prior to cutting which appears in the
abstract, it would seem the end piece could not have weighed much more
than 500 grams. The seller never weighed the meteorite and prior to my
acquisition, I never weighed the meteorite as there seemed to be no
need. When Marlin Cilz weighed Lovina prior to cutting, it came in at
4.780 kg. My jaw hit the ground and I urged Marlin to put the
meteorite on a nearby balance. He did so with the same result. At the
time I recall I didn't know what was worse, being light 3.5 kg or
Marlin's initial musings that this couldn't possibly be a meteorite.
In addition, we pried off several hundred grams of slightly ferro-
magnetic material at Lovina's base that was decidedly different than
the nickel-iron mass to which it was attached. Ted Bunch later
determined this material was terrestrial. The 4.780 kg weight
includes the weight of the terrestrial material as I had already
circulated the 4.780 kg figure during the interval required for Ted to
come back to me with his findings.

STRENGTH OF ZIGGURAT SPINAL STRUCTURE - The points are sharp and the
individual blade-like processes are extremely strong. Please also
note the top section of the meteorite has been slabbed with all
pyramidal structures kept together and preserved intact for what I
anticipate will be for future museum exhibition. (It would have been
unconscionable, in my opinion, to have subdivided this aspect of the
meteorite.)

STABILITY - I would imagine in part due to its ~35% percentage of
nickel content, Lovina is extremely stable. Moreover, as the internal
structure is not a Widmanstatten pattern, the matrix can take a high
polish leaving the vugs in stark low-relief.



All best / Darryl



On Nov 25, 2009, at 12:44 PM, info at niger-meteorite-recon.de wrote:

> Today the current issue of Meteorite arrived. While I haven't found
> time yet to
> read through the articles, I had a post card fell from inbetween
> pages, showing
> a
> brilliant and most exciting photo, which I'd like to point your kind
> attention
> to.
>
> The photo shows the surf-sculpted mass of the Lovina ungrouped iron,
> a 1981 find
> from Bali Indonesia of a 8.2 kg meteoritic iron. Ever since I heard
> from its
> discovery and classification I wondered how it might look like.
> Particularly as
> I walked the very beach where it was found repeatedly in 2004 and
> 2008. Well, it
> is not exxagerated to say, that the specimen's appearance has
> nothing in common
> with iron meteorites as we know them.
>
> The anthrazite colored mass displays a beautiful and striking three
> dimensional
> crystallization pattern which reminds one on the stepped roof
> architectures of
> Balinese temples - or on colonies of polyhedral Pacific barnacles
> clinging to
> rocks in the surf. The iron is of such striking plasticity that one
> is tempted
> to
> doubt, that the structures present are indeed revealed by nature and
> not by
> a very gifted sculptor.
>
> Perhaps our fellow list member and author of this world class photo,
> Darryl
> Pitt, is so kind to provide a link. For those who might not receive
> Meteorite,
> or think, they "have seen it all" its really worth a look.
>
> Svend
>
> www.meteorite-recon.com
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Received on Sat 28 Nov 2009 11:47:00 AM PST