[meteorite-list] Potential Ureilite

[Matson, Rob D.]

Hi William,

First question: are you sure it's a meteorite?  Very few meteorites scratch
glass, and those that do do so only weakly. Quartz, in contrast, will really
dig in to glass. I haven't tried it with a ureilite, but (as you surmise) the
polycrystalline nanodiamond content might be high enough that you could
scratch glass with a ureilite.  --Rob

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of William Feek
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2014 8:58 AM
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Subject: [meteorite-list] Potential Ureilite

Hi All,

I have a 186g whole NWAX stone, thus it's unclassified, which I purchased solely because it looked like a Ureilite. The first thing I did was drop it in a jar of nitric to clean it up a bit, just kidding, actually the first thing was to see if it scratched a microscope slide, which it did with ease. Question, is my glass test grounds enough to feel pretty confident that the stone is a Ureilite?

William