[meteorite-list] NWA 869

From: Phil Whitmer <prairiecactus_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 01:51:24 -0400
Message-ID: <5E1C1360634A45099C033BDBCBA2EDAA_at_whitmerjbqtim1>

I love NWA 869! It's my absolute favorite, hands down! It's ubiquitous,
there's so much of it to love. Back in the day, when most of you kids were
knee high to a grasshopper, I knew a fellow that imported over a metric ton
of it. Sent it back in 55 gallon drums from Morocco in a ship container.
This was at the start of the Sahara rush, when you could get it for 1/20 of
a shekel a gram. 1/10 of a dirham in Moroccan money if you bought it in
volume. The first thing you did was dump out a barrel into a big pile and
dive in like a kid into a heap of Autumn leaves. Then you would spread the
pile out and cherry pick it, there would always be some rare stuff in there.
Angrites, carbonaceous chondrites, howardites, eucrites, diogenites, you
name it, the Moroccan dealers were not so discerning back then, they were
just learning their trade. Then you would go for the unclassified OC's, the
really fresh looking fully crusted ones. Some real beauts could be found.
The funny thing about 869 is that the really big ones, the boulders, are
smoothly crusted, more often black than brown. The very small ones too have
a smooth black crust. All the rest can be put into a big pile, no one would
mistake them for anything other than 869. It's mostly the color, but the
texture too. No other meteorite has that bluish color that sometimes looks
grey green depending on the light. Sometimes it has a violet tinge, like Liz
Taylor's eyes. All the midsize rocks had the same distinctive color and
bumpy, knobby texture. This type was the vast majority of what was and
probably still is sold as NWA 869. The other stuff was probably just mixed
in by mistake, probably by a guy with a scoop shovel, scooping meteorites
off the desert floor and into a cart pulled by donkeys.
The real fun started when you cut it open. You wouldn't believe all the
different things you could find in there! If you sliced enough of it up, you
would see all kinds of unique inclusions, strange crystals you would see
only once and then never again. Tons of fun to look at it under the
microscope. Sometimes fragmental brecciated, sometimes highly shocked, you
never know what you'll see. Lowbrow or not, 869 has been made into more
jewelry, spheres and assorted knick knacks than any other meteorite I know
of. Thousands of people wear it next to their skin, some of them never take
off their meteorite amulet stones set in rings and necklesses. Definitely my
favorite stone meteorite.
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Phil Whitmer
Received on Thu 24 Jun 2010 01:51:24 AM PDT