[meteorite-list] Do all meteorites have nickel?

[bernd.pauli at paulinet.de]

Hello Tom, Göran, and List,

> it isn't always this simple as we saw
> free metal in that last Lunar meteorite

Not only in the most recent lunar meteorite:

DaG 262 contains metal particles with 5-26 wt% Ni
DaG 400 has abundant metal (meteoritic provenance)
DaG 996 contains FeNi metal, etc.

The Dhofar lunar meteorites contain
FeNi metal as do the NWA lunar meteorites.

The pyrrhotite of the DaG 876 shergottite has up to 2.5 wt% Ni
and as it is possibly paired with DaG 476, 489, 670, and 735,
these should also contain a certain amount of nickel.

NWA  856 (shergottite): 77 ppm Ni

The HEDs have nickel too (the metal of the Binda
howardite, for example has 2.0 to 3.8 % Ni).

The metal of the Hughes 007 ureilite has 1.6-4.9% Ni.
Nels Oakes' gorgeous, new lodranite NWA 2656 has 6.3% Ni.

Nickel is virtually omnipresent in meteorites!

Or, ... to sum it up with O.R. Norton's words: " ... so that for all
but a very few stony achondrites, the presence of nickel is an
important diagnostic characteristic that, if shown to be present,
almost certainly identifies the specimen as a meteorite."

NORTON O. R. (2002) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Meteorites,
Appendix E - Testing a meteorite for nickel, p. 319.


Best wishes,

Bernd