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Featured Monthly Articles

Accretion Desk by Martin Horejsi

Jim’s Fragments by Jim Tobin

Meteorite Market Trends by Michael Blood

Bob’s Findings by Robert Verish

IMCA Insights by The IMCA Team

Micro Visions by John Kashuba

Galactic Lore by Mike Gilmer

Meteorite Calendar by Anne Black

Meteorite of the Month by Michael Johnson

Tektite of the Month by Editor

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Ensisheim! The King of by Martin Horejsi

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Updated: Martin Horejsi’s Meteorite Books Website i i i

A November 1492 Witnessed Fall: Ensisheim, France Ensisheim! The King of Meteorites Born in 1492. Christened in 1727. Baptized in 1881.

The particular collecting genera in which I haunt is the intersection between science, culture and the fall of a meteorite. Using this epistemological triangulation, no other meteorite is as important as Ensisheim, the King of Meteorites.

Ensisheim.

The name alone conjures up the immense depths that meteorites hold in our culture. For those new to the field of , the hamlet of Ensisheim, France is a spiritual almost mythical land. Ensisheim, both the stone and the town, are a physical connection with our past on earth and our evolution in the Solar System. For me there is no greater treasure within a meteorite collection than Ensisheim.

The story as usually told is that shortly before noon on November 7, 1492, a meteorite fell in a field just outside the walled city of Ensisheim in Alsace. The only witness was a young boy who saw the single stone punch itself a meter deep into what is now the rich soil of the eastern French countryside. When the citizens of Ensisheim learned of the fall, many people wanted their own souvenir of the event in the form a fragment chipped from the main mass. As the crowds descended on the helpless stone, the Chief Magistrate took charge and stopped further destruction. The stone was set at the door of the Ensisheim church where its fame was soon magnified.

On November 26th, the “King of the Romans” King Maximilian arrived in Ensisheim to consult privately with the stone. Several days later, Maximilian declared the meteorite to be a wonder of God, and then chipped off two small pieces of wonder, one for himself and one for his friend Archduke Sigismund of Austria.

King Maximilian gave the stone back to the good citizens of Ensisheim stating that it should be preserved in the parish church as evidence of God’s miracles. The stone was suspended from the church’s choir loft along with an official city record describing the event.

Then 500 years went by while other stuff happened.

Today, in the City Hall of Ensisheim, the 53.831kg main mass is protected by the Brotherhood of Saint-Georges of the Guardians of the Meteorite of Ensisheim.

The rough edge of my slice, I like to believe, carries with it the dust of ages and maybe the fingerprints of King Maximilian or Wolfgang von Goethe or Ernst Florens Friedrich Chaldni in addition to those of my daughter and son.

So much has happened to this meteorite for so many years, and given Ensisheim’s head start in the race through time is so great, no other thunderstone can ever catch it let alone surpass Ensisheim’s reign as the King of Meteorites.

It is easy to see that the global circulation of Ensisheim will never meet collecting demands. However, we must remember that those who walked before us in the late 1400s, 1500s, 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s cared for the Ensisheim specimens allowing their continued collection transitions well into the 21st century. But will we do the same? The Brotherhood of Saint-Georges of the Guardians of the Meteorite of Ensisheim can only do so much.

Every century and likely every year, specimens of Ensisheim have grown smaller and smaller, whether by intent, accident, or attrition. Now 518 years into Ensisheim’s stay on earth, we are still fighting the same human avarice that disgraced the initial Ensisheim mass into half its original size. As an LL6 (I choked on the word ordinary) Ensisheim carries with it cosmic tales in addition to its earthly ones.

For me, nothing says impact and melt as well as a brecciated river.

When the Ensisheim meteorite was lovingly bathed in warm soapy water in 1881, it was a turning point in meteorite science, meteorite culture, and essentially was the symbolic baptism of a meteorite to save the soul of Ensisheim.

Although the city of Ensisheim was deep in debt through political expenditures including the building of a bridge, the wisdom of the ages held out and the main mass of Ensisheim was not sold off to a museum collection. Not that museums aren’t appropriate places for such things, it’s just that once the pride and identity of an entire city and its people are reflected the preservation, at all costs, of a singular artifact that can never have an equal, the politicians bickering and posturing over a budget sheet must look elsewhere to fill their coffers.

For if it were not for the great people of Ensisheim, the King of Meteorites would, if just lucky, occupy its own glass case in a museum somewhere. My guess is that if Ensisheim had been sold into museum servitude, it would have been further violated into a display hemisphere devoid of the greatness it now possesses sitting atop its throne just a stone’s toss from where it landed over half a millennium ago.

Ironically, it is to pay homage to the Great Ensisheim that many cross the bridge into the town completely unaware that the very over-water pathway traveled on their pilgrimage could have been traded for the King of Meteorites. An odd scar is is visible on the smallest of the cut edges. I suspect it was from an unpadded caliper stand where this slice lived for some time on display. And when talking about Ensisheim, “some time” could be centuries!

The longest cut edge of the slice shows more of the wonderful melt rivers meandering along this narrow piece of history with the same dignity as if it were flowing across a polished face.

Graphic used with permission.

At the spring 1881 meeting of the Geological Society of the Upper Rhine, the stone of Ensisheim was removed from the City Hall and brought to an Inn in Gebweiler named The Golden Angel. The main mass was showing more its neglect than its age being “encrusted with a centuries-old accumulation of dust and dirt.” The geologists bathed the stone in warm, soapy water scrubbing it clean.

At a Society dinner served with the famous Alsatian wine known as the Knight of Alsace, Professor Knop of Karlsruhe continued a tradition started by Sebastian Brant by reading a poem about Ensisheim aloud to the group. The wonderful verses presented below chronicles the almost 400 year history of the Ensisheim meteorite at that time.

The Meteorite of Ensisheim Fallen on 7 November, 1492

Sonambulent is everlasting space There wanders timelessly a meteorite, Planet-struck, in its dreams The numbers of its brothers pull it along. In the black-reflected light, It perceives in ultimate distance The wine-cheered face of earth.

It can no longer restrain itself, So long has been the wait, In the cold of outer space, Already frozen into crystals, Now it wishes to change its place. Filled with great desire It scents, and hesitates no longer, The Knightlet of Elass.

The attraction is tremendous And it speeds up in its course; As soon as it enters the atmosphere It is slowed with a thunderclap. Enveloped in heat and shock In its headlong flight, it plunged One meter deep in the soil.

From Ensisheim to the Vosges The message spread at once That a stony guest has arrived Which had fallen from the sky. Also Maximilian came, Accompanied by his advisors Favorably disposed toward science He discussed the meaning with his council.

Thereupon, he cut with mighty strokes Two pieces from the dark stone And as true evidence of a sign from heaven He coolly pockets them. He spoke: “You shall take good care of the stone,” To the burghers of Ensisheim, “It will bring luck and blessing, To your community.”

In memory of his words They took the promising find And hung it in the church of that place And two hundred and sixty pounds. And there it hung along in piece Until the priest, overwhelmed with fear, Saw in it here on this earth, The devil himself.

The stone, admired and chipped at, Insulted and jeered at, That had been diminished to half its size, Was transported into the city hall; Here it lay in an alcove Stripped of the church’s blessing, An angel bound and imprisoned For almost 400 years.

Until now a company of geologists From here in the upper Rhine Carried it to Gebwiler And checked into the Golden Angel, They held a lecture and session On the nature of the region, With research on the time scale, And on an excursion they went.

And when the ‘Cock’ crowed About the coral-meteorite of Hungary, Although with crying and bickering The one from Ensisheim was shown, Thus spake the stone: If Eozoon Had not disappeared The glorious Cock, who had found it, Would have recovered it.

The geologist at once recognized, With their stone-friendly eye In him a close relative And they mourned his hard fate. With water, with soap and brushes, They scrubbed him thoroughly And restored to splendor The “Prince of the Sky.”

Now the stone showed openly its identity, As a brecciated chondrite; Pyrrhotitie grains and nickel-iron Olivine and chrome-magnetite And with metallic luster, The stone opened its eye And faced at the Round Table The incomparable Knightlet.

The stone would have loved to stay with us But it had to be guarded very well, Torn from its lover’s hearts It was brought back to its old imprisonment; There it is still awaiting salvation For a call from Berlin-it would mean, In view of the public treasury, For both a great profit.

It would be released from its misery, The injustice of history revenged The citizen would be delivered from his debts; And Maximilian’s prophecy would be right. And the little black fellow Once banished as a devil Would be transformed as a Golden Angel For the benefit of Ensisheim.

I’m looking forward to the day when another banquet celebrates the King of Meteorites and a poem is read to 21st century people. The poem, filled with words from history as well as those from our modern world, relives the elegance of the past while gracefully transitioning to our internet-connected responsibilities to Ensisheim.

In the end, all we can do is say thank you citizens of Ensisheim. Thank you for caring about generations you would never meet. Thank you for sharing your honest words without fear a more scientifically literate society would scorn your beliefs. And thank you for saving the King.

Until next time….

The Accretion Desk welcomes all comments and f eedback. [email protected]

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Franconia Vacation 2010 by Jim Tobin

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I decided this year that I would not work right up to the day before we left for vacation. So Saturday was my last day of work and I got to do some resting up and leisurely packing before we headed to the desert on Wednesday morning. Paul arrived just about exactly when we had planned and we started toward Franconia. We have hunted the south side of the Franconia strewnfield several times and never found a stone. We have had much better luck on the North side of the strewnfield each finding several. But, as I indicated last month we were not going on vacation to really hunt hard. But to rest and recuperate from work , recline in lounge chairs and watch the planes fly over.

Picture shot facing east from our camp toward the hills of Palo Verde Mine Handheld photo at 18x with my Nikon of passenger jet.

We got some gas in Barstow and had lunch at the same time. Then it was a routine drive across the Mohave Desert. We pulled off the interstate at the Franconia offramp and intended to head over to the middle of the south side of the strewnfield where we usually have camped in the past. We got a ways down the dirt road and it was clear that they had considerable water come through the washes. There was fairly deep sand across the bottoms of some of the washes and we decided that it was safer and smarter to just go back a little and camp on the west side of the strewnfield instead. So we headed south down the main dirt road to a spot where there was a large patch of desert pavement we could pull off on and get pretty far from the road. We wanted to avoid as much dust as we could since we were really focusing on astronomy this time out. Dirt and dust are bad on our equipment. We were able to get a couple hundred feet from the road and there is so little traffic that it was a fine spot to camp.

The weather the first night was great not a cloud in the sky. I had my camera adapter rig I had worked up all ready to try out. The Moon was not yet first quarter so it was going to be good for photograph all the nights we were there. Full Moon and near full are much less interesting to view and photograph since the light hit straight on and little detail is noticeable. But, I had a great crater rich edge to shoot each night. Thursday morning it was up early and go hunting before it got really hot. We had expected that the temperature would be in the 80′s as it usually is in mid October. But it was going to be 100 degrees and we decided to hunt just 3-4 hours. We knew our chances for Franconia meteorites was poor with all the work that has been done on the south side gridding every area. We were camping south of the real strewnfield so we were really doing new exploring. One piece of desert to cold hunt is as good as another when it is the desert pavement type detecting we were doing. We found our normal selection of bullets and wire and bits of lead and rusted manmade iron. No meteorites were discovered. But, fun was had and we were not in the office at work.

In the afternoon clouds started to roll up around us. It is interesting how the clouds form there in the Franconia area. We have seen it many times. The clouds will circle the area hugging the mountains all around and then as night comes they will move across over Franconia. We got to do no astronomy on Thursday night. We stayed inside watched a movie and had popcorn. We worked with the pictures taken the night before. I am using on the telescope my older Nikon with a fixed external lens. I have an afocal adapter that I made for connecting and keeping the eyepiece of the scope and the camera lens aligned and centered over each other. I can still use the telephoto range of the camera to remove the darkening that shows in the corners of the frame on wide angle settings. Neither Paul or I have equatorial mounts right now for our scopes so exposure times have to be short. And with this afocal arrangement the magnifications used are significant and movement of the image across the frame is very noticeable. Fortunately, the Moon shoots almost like a daylight object as far as aperture and shutter setting go. The sharpness is better at the fast shutter of 1/15th second but the saturation and overall color of the shot is better at 1/8th. It is sort of a balancing act. I actually went onto auto and used the program capacity of the camera to do most of the shots on Friday evening. But, I jump ahead a little. This is a 1/8 second exposure using an off axis mask of 3 inch diameter with no tracking and a very unstable atmosphere. I still like it.

Friday morning, we had breakfast and sat outside in the shade and worked hard on doing nothing till mid-morning. We read books. Paul had some computer programming books and I brought an old book on stone rings of the British Isles. Paul got a lesson on plain and recumbent stone circles and barrow mounds and he could probably have lived all the rest of his life with out learning about them. But, they have been a fascination for me for years. We moved our lounge chairs like the shadow of a sundial. When there was nowhere to be in shade anymore we went inside until there was shade on the other side of the motor home. We had some work to do and brainstorming to do so we took care of that while there was no shade. Then it was more veg time till evening and we set up for sunset shots again. I set up the telescope once more for more Moon pictures. We had caught a few pictures of Jupiter on Wednesday night and looked at all our regular favorites. A nice selection of galaxies, nebulas, clusters, and a rounded out the first night we were there. But, the big surprise was while we were looking at one satellite go over we saw another on a near “collision” heading and that one flared very brightly for a couple seconds. I always forget to look up the iridium flare opportunities before going to the desert. We accidentally got to see a really nice one.

After getting more Moon pictures I put the scope next to the motorhome and we watched another movie, with plans to turn in rather early so we could get up and hunt meteorites for a few hours in the morning coolness. We decided pretty early in the trip that we would drive back to Bartow and stay at our favorite campground. It shortens the trip back on Sunday, lets us take a shower, get a hot meal and have wifi to catch up on email and the meteorite list. So we were going to hunt till around 12 noon and then go get lunch at the truck stop near Franconia. We drove part way down the road to as near as we could get to the west side of the strewnfield and planned to hike and hunt into the known meteorite yielding area. We actually had co-ordinates for the location of John Wolfe’s first find so I headed that way to stand on the very spot. I figured there would be a monument of some kind and there was. We have GPS tracks for everywhere we have hunted and a small area of the west side of the strewnfield was still unhunted by us so we hunted north of John’s first find and up toward the railroad tracks. We looped around and came back to the motor home. No meteorites were recovered again, but another area is off our list. This is the little monument of rocks at the location of John Wolfe's first find of a Franconia meteorite

As I was heading for the location of John’s first fine I passed some letters made of rocks next to the road. RM, I wonder who made them was it one of our meteorite friends who has those initials. I don’t know I will ask him when I see him.

I picked up plenty of nice rocks for making jewelry. I have over the years been picking up the lime green rock that is scattered all over the south side. As I was walking back toward the motorhome I found one of the sources. There was a vein erupting to the surface of the green rock surrounded by a low mound of granite. I could not help myself and took a chunk of the rock. It should give me a supply of the pretty green stuff to last for a long time. Of course I also found a lot more 50 caliber bullets and other stuff, and one mystery signal that I could not separate out in the field. I spent about 10 minutes trying to find what was making the detector go off so strongly. I figured it was a piece of lead shot or casing brass. But I could not see it in the dirt. It was not magnetic, and having found a little gold in the past and knowing it is hard to recognize when covered in dirt I brought the whole sample in a baggy back home. I washed it out a few minutes ago and though I knew Franconia was not really a gold detecting area I had hoped it might be a small nugget. Well it was a piece of lead just like one would expect. So old that it was really incrusted in white lead oxide. It was not gray anymore at all.

As always we filled the week with lots of things to do and also had some great time out hunting for meteorites. Can hardly wait for the next time we can get away for vacation. I guess that will be Tucson in February, though that is a working trip it is always fun too.

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Meteorite Market Trends by Michael Blood

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This Month’s Meteorite Market Trends

by Michael Blood

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IMCA Insights – November 2010 by IMCA TEAM

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IMCA Insights – November 2010 Munich Mineral Show 2010 by Martin Altmann

Autumn – time for the big Munich Show. Together with Tucson the marker, the indicator for the meteoritical course of the following year.

Warm fall winds bestowed days of sun and pushed the panorama of the Alps closer to the city. Full of expectations and pleasant anticipation, having 70 exhibitors listed with meteorites in mind, the visitor entered the halls. Though the longer he walked through the rows of tables, the sharper he pressed together his pupils for his hunting scheme: dark, brown, black, amorphous, lumpy, not colorful, not shiny – the more perplexity crawled up his back. And the darker the clouds got over the horizon.

Countryside near Munich, early morning Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

Where are the meteorites?!? With this outcry as title and as a résumé the Munich report 2010 would be completely done. To give any impressions, we have to take leave from comparing with the shows of the previous years. So let’s start with the irons. The veteran iron, the Campo of earlier decades, when “meteorite” was a synonym for , has after 10 years of prohibition fully disappeared. The last small box of the world with a few rough specimens was found at the table of Granddaddy Karl Sprich. Prices quadrupled from the times, Gibeon still was free. Sikhote-Alin is exhausted: 4-5 small flats with small shrapnels, and prices higher than those early ones, when you still could pick out handfuls of bullets, buttons, drops, propellers bursting of flow lines by the dozen from such boxes. Only three somewhat larger pieces on the whole show. The stalls of all our Russian friends together shrunk to a combined length of 3 yards. On their tables, as well as on Bohemian Simek’s, we missed almost all we always were used to seeing: Brahins, Chingas, Seymchans. Hanno Strufe and Dima Sadilenko (Cometshop) Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

Table of Viacheslav Kalachev Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

Gebel Kamil – after the furious impact in Ensisheim, it seems fully volatilized again. Only a few specimens here and there and a modest box under the table. As small comfort for the disappointed collector, at least a few small etched slices at a very affordable 2-3$/g were available. Morasko? Nil return. The only constant – like on every show – was of course ever-smiling Hans Campo Koser with his hundredweights of Campo del Cielos in all sizes and shapes. While the visitor lost his smile, when he remembered that two, three years ago, still other prices were noted on the price tags. Dieter Heinlein, Hans Koser, Hanno Strufe and Mike Farmer Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

The silicated NWA-iron wasn’t available anymore in entire pieces. Badly missed were all our Australian friends. The bright spot, the Davidssons with a set of exquisite Henburys with perfect patina and excellent shapes, some even resembling Sikhote-Alins. One has to go far back in time, to remember to have seen, such an assemblage of such museum-quality Henbury.

The Davidssons had a lot of first class Henbury irons for sale Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

Iron of the season was, like last year too: . All sizes, big, complete or etched. Cleaned or with yellow find patina. Cheap! Leprechaun Dima Sadilenko took the collector by the hand to lead him to Koser’s stall, where he had to place a Muonionalusta, because it was larger than his table. A whopping 630kg, big enough to fulfill the dream of taking a ride on a meteorite. Let’s get over and done with the most dismal chapter: The desert meteorites. Who would not dwell about the past years, where even two out of three fossils dealer hadn’t enough space on their tables to place their meteorites by the box – when he saw that disaster of that Munich weekend 2010. Nothing but perhaps 5 or 6 small shoe boxes, full of lousy fragments. Beat Booz from Switzerland visiting Hanno Strufe at Ismaily's table Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

Ismaily and Eva Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

The best selection of UNWA OCs was still on Ismaily’s table, he had also the only (!) useable oriented stone left of the whole show with its 1250 exhibitors. He shared the table with Hanno Strufe, who presented a nice selection of various desert types and his LL-metachondrite there. Ahmed Pani belongs to the inventory of the show, although he’s specialized in hot desert, this time he had some fantastic distorted slices, as they would have been cut from a shrapnel with olivines that popped in the eye of the visitor. Of course the Tomerellis where there too – this time displaying mainly pre-NWA-OCs of convincing quality, some of them shaped like artifacts. Table of Giorgio Tomelleri Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

But the award of the best desert assortment has to go this time definitely to Ali and Mohammed Hmani, comforting to see that the tradition is going from the father to the son to be continued.

Eva and Bernhard looking at Ali Hmani's table Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

They brought the fine main mass of the last years find NWA 5960, the green-skin shergottite paired to NWA 2990 to the show and placed it in the show case next to a 118g-lunar from the 2995/2996er-series which is currently under classification. A new lunar from Ali Hmani Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

A 21 kilo large CV3 from NWA Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

The 20kg-CV3, which we still know from Ensisheim was slumbering mighty on the table. A not yet identified larger iron from the Ziz-field built the counterpart. From their other delicacies, a fine fresh lunar-looking , coming in many individuals is to mention and three jewels from Wabar. The ladies of the harem must have a lot of sorrow – the tears they cried were large as grapes! Novelties from the hot deserts? No new unpaired Martians and Lunars at all. No new finds from Oman at all. Only three larger HEDs, one 2kg fresh crusted eucrite with white interior, a fragment of 4kg with oriented regmaglyptes of a HED and another polymict one. A small handful of other HEDs, difficult to say, which were really new or are later to pair to already known material. And – shocking – that was all. Prices? It’s better to remain silent, for not depressing the reader further. Now to give a positive turn: the offers of historic finds and falls were this year: excellent. Eisler junior, the only dealer aside Mike Farmer, who hadn’t shied away from the long journey from U.S. this year, had a lot of slices and a good variety of known and not so known names – for every purse. Table of Bud Eisler Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

The palm, Achim & Moritz Karl took it, with adjacent Mike Farmer, who made up a museum out of their row. The Karls, when asked “what’s new?”, modest as they are, answered: “Nothing”. But the slices of the historics you saw there and the names, drove tears in the eyes of the veteran collectors, let the beginners hectically search in the Blue Book, and the mid-term collector pause, to doubt in their belief that such names would be available only in molecular sized microspecks. Impressively the Karls cemented once again their position as dealers #1 of historic pieces. Mike Farmer’s best new goodies were some Springwaters from his new finds, among them a really cute perfect individual.

Morten Billet at the table of Achim Karl Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe Achim and Moritz Karl's meteorites Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

The same line of remarkable historical locales followed as always Sergey Vasiliev. His advantage is, that he has always many budget-sizes too. Remarkable this time, a well-sized fusion-crusted Ivuna, usually horribly difficult to get.

Table of Sergey and Elena Vasiliev Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

Positively to remark, was this years enlarged availability of and tektites. Finally again black indochinites of all sizes and shapes were basket-wise offered (<30$/kg). And also the choice of moldavites was better than ever. Here to mention expert Thomas Dehner, who also just has edited a new book about moldavites. Good larger quantities, just like last year, of Libyan desert glass were offered too. No good show without out a novelty. So as poor as Munich was, at least veteran dealer Uwe Eger rescued the event in this respect this year. He displayed extremely thin slices of a new pallasite from Indonesia. With strangely small orange olivines and almost no metal in between. A find of reportedly 750kgs – under classification. The new Pallasite from Indonesia presented by Uwe Eger Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

The character of Munich 2010 wasn’t only the lack of meteorites, but also the absence of many meteorite dealers. Only two dealers came from USA, the meteorite offerers of Australia and Poland stayed completely home, and a lot of the sounding European names were missing: Erich Haiderer, Alain Carion, Chladni’s Heirs, Siegfried Haberer, Bruno Fectay, Luc Labenne, Andi Gren… After the Fliegerbräu surprisingly had shut down, Andi Koppelt organized the Friday Evening Come- together in the time-honored inn, the Fraunhofer, with rustic traditional food, Munich beer, an atmosphere of Gemuetlichkeit (and with a much better service and prices). It was nice there, about 20 meteorite people tested it and were so content, that this new location will be from now on the new Jour fix for the Munich show.

Francesco Moser, Beat Booz, Peter Marmet Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe Andreas Koppelt, Jürgen Nauber, Mary and John Kashuba, Mark Vornhusen Photo courtesy Hanno Strufe

All in all Munich 2010 was for the meteorite collector a true shock. By far the poorest show for meteorites of the last 10 years. Nevertheless, Munich, Ensisheim, Tucson remain the three large MET-events where those interested in those guests from space, will get so many meteorites in their hands like nowhere else. Therefore these three Shows will always be worth the visit.

Skol.

Martin Altmann IMCA Director

This article has been edited by Anne Black and Norbert Classen

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NWA 4657 CK4 by John Kashuba

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I don’t think CK meteorites are much to look at except those rare slices with huge, gnarly CAI. You pretty much get dark in dark matrix. I have one fairly dense slice that someone polished which made features essentially disappear. Thankfully that wasn’t done to this slice.

Since this is a CK4 chondrules are easy to see scatted in the matrix. This view is an inch wide. NWA 4657. We see a lot more in thin section under a ‘scope. This is an odd shot I made with reflected light plus some light coming through the section from below. It shows quite a mix of textures and materials in a portion of a large . This picture and the next show layering from multiple accretion and heating events.

Large grains are in the interior of the chondrule, around them (below) is a rim formed from melt. It is peppered with opaque blebs. Further out (yet lower) are a couple layers of fine mineral grains then a jacket of dust.

Evidence of turbulent times - fragments of broken chondrules.

In this portrait the BO chondrule at the right is missing its lower right side. The curved fragment in the picture above is a perfect match in size, shape and even orientation. But it’s hard to believe they are mates that got separated, stayed close during final assembly and were sectioned perfectly in this slice. It is even harder to believe that they are not related.

This is the object in the left of the portrait above, a granular olivine chondrule. It contains blebs of opaque material and has a rim of coarse grains. This large diffuse feature contains a couple round dark areas surrounded by bright grains.

It would be interesting to know what mechanisms were at work here. The bars in this chondrule are the same color as the rim where they join it. That is, those bars and that portion of the rim are in optical continuity, the crystal structures are aligned. For example the bars that reach the rim from the noon position to one o’clock are light orange and so is the rim. To the right, the bars that touch the rim at two o’clock are green as is the rim. This continuity is common. The fun thing here is that this crystalline orientation extends beyond the igneous rim. We see that the mineral grains that were forming from the surrounding dust or matrix grew, “recrystallized”, with their crystal matrix in the same orientation as the nearby rim and the bars on the other side. This is seen best when the polarizing filters are rotated and, for example, the green bars, green rim and green speckles beyond go in and out of optical extinction together. Speaking of rotating filters, this animated GIF steps through four pictures to emphasis the different crystal domains in this sharp chondrule through ninety degrees of rotation. The horizontal slide remained stationary and a horizontal polarizing filter above it and a horizontal polarizing filter below it were moved in unison. The filters began and remained with their direction of polarization in a crossed orientation to each other. Consider the bright, completely illuminated shot as zero degrees. The next picture was taken with the filters rotated (about a vertical axis) approximately 23 degrees. The next picture is after another 23 degrees. And the fourth after a total of about 68 degrees. At 90 degrees the view is the same as the first picture, which is displayed again.

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The Perils of Meteorite Type Collecting, A Guide. by Michael Gilmer

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This article is directed at the silent newbie or befuddle beginner who is sorting through the confusing groups of meteorite types and trying to find their way around the world of space rocks.

Many new collectors often want one of each type of meteorite. Many veteran collectors abandon this pursuit because the task is quite daunting. So when you hear talk about “type collecting”, or building a “type collection”, what exactly does that mean?

I hope the following brief article will answer those questions, or at least point the reader in the right general direction. Note, I gleaned much of this type information from David Weir’s authoritative website “Meteorite Studies” and from the Meteoritical Bulletin. I do not claim that this list is 100% complete or without error, so if the reader spots an error or omission, please reply and correct it.

I started out collecting meteorites with a small sample of NWA 4293 – an ordinary high iron chondrite of the H6 type. It was about the size of a dog-food kibble and it looked like one. But I was instantly hooked, and I wanted to have one each of the different types of meteorite. This is known as “type collecting” or building a “type collection”.

The danger of type collecting (besides the damage to one’s checking account) is that the various petrologic types are subdivided into various grades according to metamorphism.

For example, take the group that my NWA 4293 sample belonged to.

There are H3 , H4 chondrites, H5 chondrites, and H6 chondrites. Did I really need one each of these subtypes? Well, it depends on how deep a collector wants to go into the rabbit hole. There are distinct differences between the various H types.

The number attached to each is more than just a simple weathering grade or shock grade. It represents a progession in the H-chondrite family from least altered to most altered. H3 chondrites are loaded with chondrules, H4 have some chondrules, H5 has few chondrules, and H6 has virtually no visible chondrules. A new grade of H7 has been added as well. So, a collector could simply have a single Hx chondrite and say that the H-chondrites are represented. Or, the collector could have one each of the different subtypes from 3 to 7.

Another peril is the changing of nomenclature. For example, the K-subgroup of carbonaceous chondrites was only recognized and designated in 1990. Up until then, Karoonda was considered a CV4 meteorite of the Vigarano family. Now Karoonda is recognized as distinctly different type of , so it was made into it’s own group. Now we have CK4, CK5, and CK6 meteorites – all represent a progression in metamorphism and have visible (and chemical) differences from other grades. There are standout members of each subgroup, so where does one draw the line?

Should the collector acquire a sample of Karoonda and be done with it? Or should one go out and track down CK4, CK5 and CK6 meteorites? Again, it depends on how extensive and exhaustive a collector wants to be with their type collection. Budget will also play a role as well, because an exhaustive type collection is a daunting project.

Lastly, one must consider the ungrouped meteorites. These are oddball meteorites that do not neatly fit into the pre-existing meteorite types. There are ungrouped chondrites, ungrouped , and ungrouped irons. No type collection can overlook these meteorites because some of them are types unto themselves with unique qualities. For those who want to build a definitive and complete type collection, here is a list of every known type and subtype of meteorite. This list was culled from other sources, including David Weir’s authoritative “Meteorite Studies” website linked at the end of this post.

Carbonaceous Chondrites :

CI (Ivuna) CM1 (Murchison) CM2 (subdivided into CM2.0 to CM2.6) CM3 CO3 () (subdivided into CO3.03 to CO3.7) CV (Vigarano) (also CV2 and CV3) CK (Karoonda) (CK4, CK5, CK6) CR (Renazzo) (CR1, CR2, CR3) CB (Bencubbin) CH CR ungrouped C4 ungrouped C ungrouped (, others)

Ordinary Chondrites :

Rumuruti R3 (subdivided into R3.5-6 to R3.9) R4 R5 R6

LL (subdivided into LL3.0 to LL3.9) LL4 LL5 LL5/6 LL6 LL6/7 LL7 LL impact melt

LL transitional (L/LL3 to L/LL6) L (subdivided into L3.0 to L3.9) L4 L5 L6 L6/7 L7 L impact melt

H/L transitional (H/L3 to H/L6 IMB, H/L3.6 to H/L3-4) H (subdivided into H3.0 to H3.9) H4 H5 H6 H7 H impact melt ungrouped ordinary chondrites

Enstatite Chondrites :

EL (EL3 to EL7) EL impact melt EH/L EH (EH3 to EH7) EH impact melt ungrouped enstatite chondrites

K (Kakangari)

Meta-chondrites (M-CV, M-CR, M-H, M-LL)

Primitive Chondrites :

Acapulcoite ungrouped primitive chondrites

Achondrites :

Howardite (subdivided into fragmental and regolith breccia) Eucrite (monomict and polymict with each having subclasses) (monomict and polymict) Olivine Diogenite Dunite (monomict and polymict)

Martian achondrites :

Shergottite Pyroxene-phyric basaltic shergottite Olivine-phyric basaltic shergottite Olivine-orthopyroxene-phyric basaltic shergottite Pyroxene-peridotitic (Wehrlitic) shergottite Lherzolitic shergottite Diabasic shergottite

Nakhlite Chassignite Orthopyroxenite (ALH 84001)

Lunar Achondrites :

Feldspathic Regolith breccia Fragmental breccia Impact melt breccia Granulitic breccia Mafic-rich Thorium-rich KREEP-rich

Mingled Breccia Mare Basalt

Other Achondrites :

Angrites (Plutonic and Basaltic) ungrouped achondrites (Ibitira, Pasamonte, etc)

Stony-Irons :

Mesosiderites (1A,1B,2A,2B,2C,3A,3B,4A,4B) ungrouped

Pallasites (Main Group, , Pyroxene group) Pallasite-am (anomalous, PMG-am, PMG-as) ungrouped

Iron meteorites :

Note, iron meteorites are a can of worms. I will only focus on the main chemical groups, and not the various grouplets and sub-types of each main chemical group. Also note that many of these types include silicated varities. Listing all of the known sub-types of irons would require a LONG list resembling a flow-chart.

IAB IC IIAB IIC IID IIE IIF IIG IIIAB IIIE IIIF IVA IVB ungrouped irons

I think that is all of them – as currently recognized by the Meteoritical Society Nomenclature Committee. If anyone can think of some I missed, please add them to this list.

David Weir’s Meteorite Studies website – http://www.meteoritestudies.com/

Best regards and happy collecting!

© Copyright 2010, Michael Gilmer. (www.galactic-stone.com)

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