[meteorite-list] Santa Fé

[bernd.pauli at paulinet.de]

Martin wrote from summerly hot Romania:

"wasn't there a type-guessing contest for Santa Fe in April on the list?"

Yes, there was and one of the most sophisticated answers came from Rob
Matson! Anne had forwarded Robert's mail on Tuesday, April 05, 2007.

My 4.8 grams of Santa Fé arrived today. Thanks a lot, Mirko! Among numerous other
interesting details, Rob wrote this: "IIIE's are abundant in carbide, which makes
them a bitch to cut ... Since no mention was made of cutting difficulty, it probably
makes sense to exclude IIIE."

"a bitch to cut" is a key-word for some of Mirko's remarks in the mail he sent me:

"it's very problematic to cut and polish this material because there is an abnormally
high cutting loss. Some areas are so hard to cut and metallic grains so minute that
there's always a high risk of a metal inclusion breaking away.

Marcin wrote in a personal mail that Santa Fé might be a ruster and he may be right because
one look at my piece under the microscope does show it is prone to rust. As a precaution,
Mirko sent my sample in a padded plastic box together with some silica gel.

Thanks again, Mirko, and I think everybody is anxious to learn about its classification,
which is still pending.

Best regards,

Bernd

http://www.spacerocksinc.com/April_5_2007.html