[meteorite-list] sharp protrusion from an iron meteorite

[Mendy Ouzillou]

My guess is the the metal was pushed out due to oxidization. The metal seems to be protruding from a crack. I'm thinking moisture made its way into the crack and as the iron oxide formed, it forced the metal to cleave and then pushed the metal up.

Mendy Ouzillou

On Feb 27, 2013, at 11:41 PM, Randy Korotev <korotev at wustl.edu> wrote:

I recieved a well prepared letter from a fellow with a question that I can't begin to answer.  Maybe someone on the list has seen this kind of thing before.

He bought a Baygorria (Iron, IAB complex) from a dealer 3 years ago. He picked it up recently to find a metal protrusion sticking out of the thing that was sharp enough to prick his thumb.

Here's a jpg of his scanned photo.

http://meteorites.wustl.edu/baygorria.jpg

What's happened here?

Randy Korotev
St. Louis

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