[meteorite-list] Octahedrite formation and Mars

[martinh at isu.edu]

Hello Thomas and All,

Actually, I would suspect the earth does not YET have a Widmanstatten patterned core since the crystal formation is a solid state creation once the iron has solidified (cooled below the melting point) of which I believe the earth's core is still liquid.

Just my thoughts. Maybe the MESSENGER mission to Mercury (which is 60-65 percent core) will shed more light on this topic.

Cheers,

Martin



----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Kurtz <thomas.kurtz at stud.fh-hannover.de>
Date: Thursday, October 28, 2004 4:19 pm
Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] Octahedrite formation and Mars

> Yes, and in the core of our earth there are Widmanstaetten pattern 
> too.Unfortunately, we will never dig it out :-)
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Thomas, California.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
> [meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of tracy
> latimer
> Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2004 10:52 PM
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Octahedrite formation and Mars
> 
> I was just reading Meteorites and the Origin of Planets, by John 
> A. Wood.  
> In it, I found a statement that octahedrites are formed by 
> exceptionally 
> slow cooling over millions of years, such as might be found in the 
> insulated
> center of a planetoid.  We already know that Mars has a very weak 
> magnetic 
> field and negligible vulcanism, leading some scientists to believe 
> that its 
> core has largely cooled.  Might this mean that, if we were able to 
> extract a
> 
> chunk of Martian core, it would exhibit an octahedral pattern?  
> Anyone care 
> to speculate on the nickel content of the Martian core?
> 
> Mars is one big Wiedmanstatten pattern!
> Tracy Latimer
> 
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