[meteorite-list] Nickel tests

[Michael Murray]

For what they are worth, here are a couple suggestions...
If you place the suspect iron on a strong magnet, then remove the  
magnet, the suspect iron should not retain magnetism (if it's a  
meteorite) but should to some extent if man-made iron. Kind of like  
magnetizing the tip of a screwdriver.  You can test the once  
magnetized suspect iron to see if it will attract fine particles of  
magnetite,   Not very scientific I know but it is a good indicator I  
think.

Another thing you can try if the suspect iron is not very big is to  
place it on a strong magnet (super magnet if you have one) and if the  
iron piece wants to orient itself up on one of it's ends on the  
magnet, I would rule out meteorite.  If your suspect iron is large,  
you'd probably have to remove a small piece of it to do this test.  If  
the small piece lays down on any of it's sides on the magnet and  
doesn't want to orient itself, I'd put it in my 'it's a keeper for  
more testing' pile.

I bought a couple nickel test kits.  I have tried to be as careful as  
possible to do a clean uncontaminated test on several suspect irons.   
After doing quite a few, I still don't trust the results.  It's not  
that I don't get positives, I do.  It's that I've learned not trust  
the positive tests all that much.  If I find a big enough suspect iron  
someday with enough other indicators that it could be a meteorite then  
I will let a lab do the testing so I can rest assured the results are  
going to be more trustworthy than mine.  Meanwhile, my 'it's a keeper  
for more testing' pile continues to grow.

Mike in CO

On Sep 23, 2009, at 12:27 PM, Mike Hankey wrote:

> I've done some nickel tests on some of the slag/meteor wrongs we  
> have found.
>
> It tests positive for nickel.
>
> Does this sound normal?
>
> So I guess the only way to confirm slag (if you can't do it visually)
> is to cut it open and if there are holes / bubbles then it is slag. Or
> if the slice doesn't look like a meteorite slice it is slag.
>
> For the record, I am personally looking for west like fusion crusted
> stones and this is what I am training people to look for. At the same
> time when I get reports about weird rocks I have to follow up and take
> a look. Not all slag looks the same, there are a lot of different
> types. I'm getting pretty good at identifying / ruling things out, but
> the nickel test threw me for a loop.
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