[meteorite-list] Rocks from Space Picture of the Day - February 24, 2010

From: Galactic Stone & Ironworks <meteoritemike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:21:24 -0500
Message-ID: <e51421551002240921n40bb6f75vf3b2087492ba6ed5_at_mail.gmail.com>

HI Adam and List,

This is a fascinating specimen. Surely it represents a
previously-unknown parent body.

While the presence of vugs/vesicles suggests the specimen was not
formed in a vacuum, maybe there was some gases present during the
formation.

For example, suppose a large comet slammed into a predominately-iron
asteroid. Comets contain large volumes of material that can
sublimate, and maybe during the collision, some of this gaseous
material injected into the iron body. The heat and/or shock resulting
from the collision provided inroads for the cometary material by
expanding existing fissures or faults. Then the intermingled material
rapidly cooled, forming the vesicles we see now. The massive shock
and/or heating would also wipe out the native widmanstatten pattern
present in the iron body, leaving behind an ataxite-like mass without
the typical crystallization patterns......???

Then this curious mass fell to Earth and experienced
weathering/alteration to provide the strange external appearance we
see now.

Or, to play devil's advocate, perhaps this is a very atypical type of
industrial slag unlike any seen before. Is there any industry
present in the area where this mass was found?

Best regards,

MikeG




On 2/24/10, Adam Hupe <raremeteorites at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Very interesting, what are voids (vesicles) doing in an iron meteorite? I
> have only heard of sparse vugs found in one iron before and thought vesicles
> would most certainly disqualify an object from being an iron meteorite. Has
> cosmic ray exposure testing been done? It would be interesting to see how
> long this object has been in space.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Adam
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Michael Johnson <michael at rocksfromspace.org>
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Sent: Wed, February 24, 2010 8:17:14 AM
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Rocks from Space Picture of the Day - February 24,
> 2010
>
> http://www.rocksfromspace.org/LOVINA_METEORITE.html
>
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-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Gilmer
http://www.galactic-stone.com
http://www.facebook.com/galacticstone
------------------------------------------------------------

Received on Wed 24 Feb 2010 12:21:24 PM PST