My Meteorite Collection: Latest Additions

[John]

A little while ago I posted some photos of my very modest collection of meteorites. Well I've managed to grow it a little since then so I thought I'd post a pic of the new specimens for anyone who's interested. In case anyone wonders, no, I did not find these myself, I bought them from reputable dealers (yes, there are such people). The chances of finding a meteorite, especially in the UK are very, very, very low so building a collection of pieces that you have found yourself would take several lifetimes !.

Anyway here we go:

From the top left moving clockwise:

Specimen 1 is a 9 gram slice of a stone chrondrite meteorite called Korra Korrabes. It was found in Namibia, Africa in 1996 by someone who was actually looking for bits of the famous Gibeon iron meteorite. This is not a good photo but the slice shows lots of nice grey chrodrules (the roundish spots) against a darker matrix (rock). As with many meteorites it formed around 4.55 billion years ago.

Specimen 2 is a 36 gram slice of a piece of the Cayon Diablo iron meteorite that was responsible for creating the famous Meteor Crater near Flagstaff in Arizona. This piece has been cut and etched with acid to show the "Widmanstatten" pattern that many iron meteorites display. This was created as various metals cooled over a period of millions of years in the core of a sizeable asteroid-type object, again around 4.5 billion years ago. It is estimated that the overall size of the metorite was about 150 feet in diameter when it hit.

Specimen 3 does not look much but is quite significant - they are 2 fragments of the Moon !. In particular these are fragments of a meteorite called North West Africa (NWA) 032 which has been analysed and found to be very similar to rocks bought back by the Apollo missions. NWA 032 is mare basalt, ie: it comes from the dark seas of the moon. Only 460 grams of this stuff have been found so far and it one of the younger meteorites - a mere 2.7 billion years old. Basically it was lava that cooled beneath the lunar surface and was later blasted off into space by a meteorite impact. It drifted through space for around 45 million years before falling to earth.

Specimen 4 is a 1.19 gram fragment of the largest UK meteorite fall on record - the Barwell Metorite, a stone chondrite meteorite that fell (in pieces) on Christmas Eve 1965 over the town of Barwell in Leicestershire. A total of 44 KG of this has been found to date. UK metorites are pretty thin on the ground so I was very pleased to add this to my collection. The Barwell Meteorite has been dated has having formed 4.53 billion years ago.

That's it for now - If there's any interest I'll post some more when I get them. I'm happy to field questions but I'm going away for a week so I'll reply when I get back.

John

[magician]

I must admit the idea of a meteorite does appeal, it looks as if you've got some really interesting pieces there,I suppose finding'Reputable' dealers is what puts me off, because, in my ignorance ,I could easily be sold almost anything that was passed off as meteoritic material,any hints on where I might start?

Cheers Frank

[John]

I must admit the idea of a meteorite does appeal, it looks as if you've got some really interesting pieces there,I suppose finding'Reputable' dealers is what puts me off, because, in my ignorance ,I could easily be sold almost anything that was passed off as meteoritic material,any hints on where I might start?

Cheers Frank

A good place to start is here: www.meteorite.com

All the folks advertising on this page are well established dealers and registered with the International Meteorite Collectors Association (IMCA).

It's simply not in their interests in selling anything remotely dodgy - word would get around so quickly and their custom would die off almost overnight.

Many are regular advertisers on e.bay although the vast majority are USA based. I have never had any problems in getting the stuff to me (eg: customs etc).

John

[Carl]

Was just gonna ask about where to start but Magician beat me to it.

[daz]

There is this guy as well, UK based, and I can personally vouch for him

http://www.space-rocks.wanadoo.co.uk/LibyanGlass.html

Does a good talk for societies as well.