Hello Fellow List Members, After nearly three months in orbit about Mercury, MESSENGER's payload is providing a wealth of new information about the planet closest to the Sun. There is hope that data provided will resolve questions about the surface soils of the planet. There is a strong theory that certain impact scenarios may have produced mercurial meteorites here on Earth. Our scientists have a good notion of what those meteorites might be made up of and maybe that idea will change with the additional data gathered. As much as I am a skeptic about the angrites being one of those groups of Mercurial debris it is naturally also one of my hopes since I hold the main mass of the gorgeous angrite; D’Orbigny. We have listed this magnificent specimen again for your viewing pleasure on Ebay. Looking at the number of strange augite crystal filled vugs and the perfectly formed vesicles; the matrix of D’Or resembles the crater pocked surface of Mercury. Sorry, just wishful thinking. When I first saw D’Orbigny lying on the finder’s dining room table in Buenos Aires many years ago I thought I was looking at an oriented, 35 pound individual of Martian Basalt. Never in my wildest meteorite dreams did I ever expect to see vesicles up to an inch in diameter (big enough to fit my thumb into) scattered throughout this amazing matrix of green and black. It was sad to see it get broken into pieces but this was done by Dr. Gerot Kurat in the name of research to acquire research fragments from the extreme center of the mass. The main mass featured on Ebay is the largest fragment being a cross section piece from the middle of the stone. The next largest fragments were roughly one kilogram in size. The leading surface displays elongated and unidirectional regmaglymphs like so many classic, oriented meteorites. When intact It was a perfect mushroom cap shaped dish with what appears to have been a roughly 6 inch diameter blown out vesicle on the back side which is why the finder thought it was an ancient native artifact and brought it home. Little did he know that the dish was coated with fusion crust like the rest of the mass. It wasn’t until years later that he watched a meteorite program on B.A. television that he took another look at his artifact and realized what he had. On the advice of the local Buenos Aires museum curator and a couple of local meteorite collectors, he sent small fragments broken from a thin edge of the stone to several museums. He sent a piece to Brian Mason at U.S.N.M., another piece to the British Museum to Robert Hutchison and Monica Grady, To Marty Prinz at the American Museum in New York and to Ed Olsen at the Field Museum in Chicago. They all took a look at their samples, read the letter enclosed and all sent their pieces back saying that it was probably volcanic tuff from Hawaii most likely. In defense of these institutions had any of them seen a large piece with fusion crust it would have been a different outcome. The finder and his helpers in Argentina were very upset with this result and so the finder was then advised to take the stone with him on a vacation trip to Europe and while there to show the stone to Dr. Gero Kurat. Well, the rest is history. I remember the story about Gero’s eyes lighting up as he came closer and closer to this stone under a stranger’s arm walking towards him in the halls of the Max Planck Institute. You can imagine everyone’s surprise and embarrassment to learn they had turned away such a cosmic treasure. I vaguely remember stories of Robert Haag having the same kind of experience with Cat Mountain. Sometimes a wonderful new meteorite comes out of the field that seems to break all of the rules. The same was the case with our ungrouped achondrite NWA 6693. And it turns out to have over 70% pyroxene and the metal contains over 80% nickel! The metal is like stainless steel! This meteorite has been on Earth long enough for the desert winds to blast off all of the fusion crust and yet the tiny flecks of metal are bright and shiny and there is no rust staining anywhere throughout the gorgeous ‘Super Green’ matrix. The scientist at UCLA and Patrick and I have fondly nicknamed this meteorite; ‘Super Green’. So, back to the glorious D’Orbigny, we have proudly preserved this wonderful main mass fragment for over 11 years. We are happy to continue with its preservation indefinitely but we are also prepared to find it a new home with a collector or institution that will care for it as we have. Please check out it’s listing on EBay and enjoy the pictures. If you have any questions about D’Or please drop me a line at;
[email protected] http://cgi.ebay.com/DOrbigny-Angrite-Meteorite-Main-Mass-2394-grams-/200635450401?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2eb6ce0421 Remember folks, I’ve been at this business for most of my life, a collector since the age of 14 and a full time dealer since 1987. In those years I’ve stashed a few gems under the bed and in the vaults. Patrick and I have a lot of very nice both rare and fairly common specimens. Somewhere around the house I still have my first Zagora specimen from the 1987 trip to Morocco and somewhere in my parents many boxes of family photos are all the pictures from my first rock trip to Morocco in 1972 when a friend and I lived in Kenitra and Rabat for six months and went on numerous trips in a Volkswagen van to the edge of the desert to recruit meteorite and fossil hunters; some of whom are producing meteorites for all of us today. I’m still trying to find a missing box of pieces of El Hammami Mountains from the trip in 1997. Anyway, this is an open invitation for any of you who would like to come here for a visit and hold some of these cosmic treasures in your hands. The weather man says the high for each day this week is 80 degrees, it gets down to a very nice 60 degrees at night. You can stay here at the house and enjoy getting out of the heat. I hear that it’s 117 in the shade in Arkansas today, wow! Steve, bring your whole film crew if you like. You can tour the lab here at C.M.L. and check out the Evergreen Air and Space museum. Take a day trip up to Mount St. Helens only 40 miles from the house and even take some fresh volcanic ash home if you like. There are seven clear, cold, white water rivers within 15 minutes of the house and we have kayaks and a canoe. So bring your swim suits and your smile and make a week of it. I guarantee you’ll find it hard to leave. It’s Paradise here this time of year! All it takes is a plane ticket and you’re welcome. Sincerest regards, Edwin Thompson (E.T.) and Son ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
