Hi All, I'll have to back Doug on this one -- it is more likely that a transcription error or font change might occur than that one iron meteorite should have an anomalously high gold content by three orders of magnitude. I've seen milligrams and micrograms often confused in technical papers, probably as a consequence of a simple font change. (Remember that the letter "m" is a mu when using a Greek font.) --Rob
-----Original Message----- From: meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com [mailto:meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Jason Utas Sent: Monday, October 03, 2011 10:13 PM To: Meteorite-list Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Gold and Iridium content ofmeteorites(especiallyirons) Hello Doug, All, We're looking at an iron meteorite, which is a piece of material in which predominantly heavy elements have been sorted and accumulated through processes that took place over billions of years. Saying that gold is uncommon in the solar system doesn't mean much; we know that differentiation has created meteorites with upwards of 50% Ni, so anomalous concentrations of various heavy elements don't strike me as strange at all. NWA 859 (Taza) is a perfect example with an average of ~2200 ppm Ge (observed range of 1500-5000 ppm). One might as well state that it is unlikely for iron meteorites to exist at all because hydrogen and helium make up such a large portion of the mass in the universe/solar system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements#Abundance_of_elements_in_the_Universe I'd prefer to trust the basic analytical work of one of the world's foremost experts on iron meteorites in this case. Of course, errors do make it into the bulletin with some regularity, often due to human error when the data is being transferred. If in doubt, contact the folks who manage the bulletin. Regards, Jason ______________________________________________ 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
