> I have found some historical accounts of meteorites > with red veins, supposedly cinnabar. Can such things be?
Hello Chris and List, I f you are talking about Colston Bassett - the answer is definitely no because it is a pseudometeorite. The Catalogue says that : "A boulder lying in the churchyard has been identified as cinnabar, probably from Peru. Its meteoritic origin appears to be 'purely a fabrication of local legend', W.A.S. Sarjeant, The Mercian Geologist, 1971, 4, p. 41." If you are talking about Allende or Murchison, the answer may be yes because *minute* amounts of Hg (= mercury) have been identified in them: Allende = 30 � 1.5 ng/g and Murchison = 294 � 15 ng/g. Well, just like iron + sulfur = FeS (troilite), Hg + S = HgS = cinnabar. References: LAURETTA D.S. et al. (2000) Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry measurements of bulk mercury abundances and isotopic ratios in Murchison - CM, and Allende - CV (MAPS 35-5, 2000, Suppl., A095). RUBIN A.E. (1997) Mineralogy of meteorite groups (Meteoritics 32-2, 1997, 231-247). ULYANOV A.A. (1991) The meteorite minerals (Brown- Vernadsky Microsymp. Comp. Planet. 14th). Best regards, Bernd ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
