Hello Darryl,
gosh, so you've to arrange yourself with the fact that perhaps you only have
a part of the spaceship which tried to escape from the sinking Atlantis
instead of a meteorite. In any case: it still looks fantastic.
Best regards,
Matthias
----- Original Message -----
From: "Darryl Pitt" <[email protected]>
To: "Adam List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 9:15 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] LOVINA REVISITED
Well, I had an interesting day today....
This morning I met with Roy Clarke, Linda Welzenbach, Cari Corrigan, Glen
MacPherson, and Tim McCoy at the Smithsonian. During our get- together
Tim made several observations as to why Lovina could very well not be
what it has been made out to be---which is to say, a meteorite---and why
more work must be done.
In Tim's words....
1) The sulfides are not simply troilite and appear optically to be
multiple phases, including one that looks like the Ni-rich sulfide
pentlandite.
2) Although the presence of the octahedrons has been attributed to
weathering, the structure of the remainder of the meteorite shows fine
stringers of sulfide, not large areas that would easily weather out
leaving such octahedron.
3) On one polished slice, the sulfides clearly wrap around one of the
indentations, rather than the cross-cutting relationship one might expect
from a significantly weathered iron meteorite.
4) The composition given - high Ni coupled with moderately high Ga and
Ge - is difficult to reconcile with a meteorite composition. Iron
meteorites acquire high Ni concentrations through 1 of 3 mechanisms.
Oxidation simply changes iron to FeO, leaving Ni behind. This can
produce high-Ni irons with modest Ga and Ge. Nebular condensation can
also produce high-Ni iron which then melts to form cores in which high-Ni
iron meteorites form. This process, however, occurs at high temperature
where the volatile elements Ga and Ge are depleted. Finally, you can
produce high Ni through fractional crystallization. Ni prefers the solid
phase when a core crystallizes, so early irons are low in Ni and later
crystallizing ones are high in Ni. However, Ga and Ge behave opposite of
Ni, so low Ni irons are high in Ga and Ge and high Ni irons are low and
Ga and Ge. The published Ga and Ge values are at least a factor of 15
higher than reported for similar iron meteorites.
5) The holes exposed in the center of the specimen are not the shape one
would expect of weathering, but seem circular. Circular vugs are
commonly produced in slags when gases try to escape.
There was more...including the fact that Indonesia is a nickel-rich
locality as well as Tim's conclusion that Lovina was most likely a highly
weathered example of a smelted Ni-rich sulfide.
Sales have been suspended and monies are in the process of being
returned. Further testing will be done to confirm Lovina's place of
origin and the results will be posted to the list by mid-January.
I think I'll go see the new Clooney film "Up In The Air." Ohhh---and
might anyone want an inexpensive 13 kg specimen of Willamette for
Christmas?!
And how was your day? ;-)
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