Lot 1678
Meteorite Campo del Cielo Etched Half. The famous iron-nickel meteorite Campo del Cielo fell to the earth over 4,000 years ago in mountainous region of Gran Chaco, Argentina, 500 miles north-northwest of Buenos Aries, in one of the largest and undoubtedly most dramatic falls in the last 10,000 years. Meteorites from this fall were scattered over hundreds of square miles of inaccessible terrain. This heavy 5 x 3 x 2.75 inch meteorite cut in half weighs 4.5 pounds and has been polished and etched on two sides to show its Widmanstatten pattern which results from two alloys of Nickel in the meteorite etching at different rates. There are no iron-nickel rocks on Earth that exibit a Widmanstatten pattern because the parent asteroid where these iron-nickel meteorites originate was destroyed by impact with another large asteroid and the new melted iron-nickel core had to cool at the very slow rate of a couple of degrees per million years to allow enough time for the nickel alloys Kamacite (the light bands which are low in nickel) and Taenite (the dark bands which are high in nickel) to separate. This spectacular half meteorite has the original surface with regmaglypts and fusion crust all around except for two sides that have been beautifully etched to show the coarse octahedrite pattern of this Type 1A iron-nickel meteorite.
Add $20 for domestic shipping.
Estimated Value $850 - 1,000.
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