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 On 2/24/10, Adam Hupe <raremeteori...@yahoo.com> 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 > > > > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: Michael Johnson <mich...@rocksfromspace.org> > To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com > Sent: Wed, February 24, 2010 8:17:14 AM > Subject: [meteorite-list] Rocks from Space Picture of the Day - February 24, > 2010 > > http://www.rocksfromspace.org/LOVINA_METEORITE.html > > ______________________________________________ > Visit the Archives at > http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html > Meteorite-list mailing list > Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list > > ______________________________________________ > Visit the Archives at > http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html > Meteorite-list mailing list > Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list > -- ------------------------------------------------------------ Mike Gilmer http://www.galactic-stone.com http://www.facebook.com/galacticstone ------------------------------------------------------------ ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list