[meteorite-list] LOVINA REVISITED

[Matthias Bärmann]

Hello Darryl,

gosh, so you've to arrange yourself with the fact that perhaps you only have 
a part of the spaceship which tried to escape from the sinking Atlantis 
instead of a meteorite. In any case: it still looks fantastic.

Best regards,

Matthias

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Darryl Pitt" <darryl at dof3.com>
To: "Adam List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 9:15 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] LOVINA REVISITED


>
> Well, I had an interesting day today....
>
> This morning I met with Roy Clarke, Linda Welzenbach, Cari Corrigan,  Glen 
> MacPherson, and Tim McCoy at the Smithsonian.   During our get- together 
> Tim made several observations as to why Lovina could very  well not be 
> what it has been made out to be---which is to say, a  meteorite---and why 
> more work must be done.
>
> In Tim's words....
>
> 1)   The sulfides are not simply troilite and appear optically to be 
> multiple phases, including one that looks like the Ni-rich sulfide 
> pentlandite.
>
> 2)  Although the presence of the octahedrons has been attributed to 
> weathering, the structure of the remainder of the meteorite shows fine 
> stringers of sulfide, not large areas that would easily weather out 
> leaving such octahedron.
>
> 3)  On one polished slice, the sulfides clearly wrap around one of the 
> indentations, rather than the cross-cutting relationship one might  expect 
> from a significantly weathered iron meteorite.
>
> 4)  The composition given - high Ni coupled with moderately high Ga  and 
> Ge - is difficult to reconcile with a meteorite composition.    Iron 
> meteorites acquire high Ni concentrations through 1 of 3  mechanisms. 
> Oxidation simply changes iron to FeO, leaving Ni behind.   This can 
> produce high-Ni irons with modest Ga and Ge. Nebular  condensation can 
> also produce high-Ni iron which then melts to form  cores in which high-Ni 
> iron meteorites form.  This process, however,  occurs at high temperature 
> where the volatile elements Ga and Ge are  depleted.  Finally, you can 
> produce high Ni through fractional  crystallization.  Ni prefers the solid 
> phase when a core crystallizes,  so early irons are low in Ni and later 
> crystallizing ones are high in  Ni.  However, Ga and Ge behave opposite of 
> Ni, so low Ni irons are  high in Ga and Ge and high Ni irons are low and 
> Ga and Ge.   The  published Ga and Ge values are at least a factor of 15 
> higher than  reported for similar iron meteorites.
>
> 5)  The holes exposed in the center of the specimen are not the shape  one 
> would expect of weathering, but seem circular.  Circular vugs are 
> commonly produced in slags when gases try to escape.
>
> There was more...including the fact that Indonesia is a nickel-rich 
> locality as well as Tim's conclusion that Lovina was most likely a  highly 
> weathered example of a smelted Ni-rich sulfide.
>
> Sales have been suspended and monies are in the process of being 
> returned.  Further testing will be done to confirm Lovina's place of 
> origin and the results will be posted to the list by mid-January.
>
> I think I'll go see the new Clooney film "Up In The Air."   Ohhh---and 
> might anyone want an inexpensive 13 kg specimen of Willamette for 
> Christmas?!
>
>
> And how was your day?   ;-)
>
>
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