[meteorite-list] Fairfield "iron" meteorite

[almitt2 at localnet.com]

Hi Dave and all,

Having purchased some of the Fairfield Meteorite from the finder and 
cut the material into slices, I have some comments about it.

First the matrix seem very tight and the specimen had rust on the 
outside but was very stable on the inside. I was worried about it going 
bad for my customers but after having kept an eye on it after 
processing I was amazed at how nice this meteorite was. I still have a 
couple of unfinished slices that I need to work yet so I can trade them 
but even those are not showing any signs of problems after cutting. I 
do dry out my material after cutting and lapping.

I'll have to look in the Iron Handbooks to see what was said on the 
terrestrial age of the material and how long it might have been in the 
ground. It may be the water table was low at time of impact and later 
on it raised contaminating the outside of the meteorite later on. I'll 
try to get back on comments from the iron meteorite handbooks (if Bernd 
doesn't beat me to it :-)

--AL Mitterling
Mitterling Meteorites
www.mitterling.com

Quoting Dave Myers <whitefalcons007 at yahoo.com>:

> Hi List,
>
> Speaking of known meteorites that rust and ones that dont that bad, 
> brings up a
> question about the Fairfield
> meteorite. All my life I lived within 8 miles where it was found at 
> the gravel
> pit here in Butler county Ohio. It was found at a depth of between 70 to 120
> feet deep in the sand and gravel left by the Wisconson Glacier.
>
> You have to only dig down 15-20 feet befor everything is submerged in water,
> part of the miami valley aquifer,
>
> and as far as I know it has been like that since 18,000 to 14,000 
> years ago. If
> the Fairfield meteorite was in water for that amount of time I would think it
> would had rusted away completly 1000's of years ago??
>
> Or was it a huge meteorite at one time, and the 1.6 kg that was recovered is
> what was left??
>
> Just wondering your thoughts on that.
>
> dave