Dear List and Mike, Adam, Carl...
The voids remarked upon are not vesicles but an artifact of
weathering. The depressions seen are the end points where by water
penetrated the meteorite and you just aren't able to see the entry
point (which were the crevasses between the ziggurat structures).
For vug lovers--and I count myself among you!: Lovina does indeed
contain a blanketing of tiny vugs, which are fun to have but are
actuality only fully oxidized iron sulfide pockets. Remember, Lovina
was in saltwater for centuries, if not longer. If you enlarge and
scan the image of the cut surface, you can see where the sulfide
remains in the matrix and where it oxidized out.
As expressed by J. Wasson, the compositional fingerprint (the
meteorite's DNA, if you will) is the incontrovertible smoking gun.
All best / Darryl
On Feb 24, 2010, at 12:09 PM, Adam Hupe 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
On Feb 24, 2010, at 12:21 PM, Galactic Stone & Ironworks wrote:
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
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