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PRESS A COSMIC ENTITY ABOVE OR PRESS HERE TO GO BACK We sell two different types of meteorite 8 gram meteorite from Campo del Cielo in Argentina (£7.99) 0.4 gram Gibeon meteorite from Namibia (£2.99) Details below... Individual meteorite from Campo del Cielo (Field of the Heavens) in Argentina
A meteorite that comes from the legendary Campo Del Cielo meteor storm which occurred in Argentina around 2,000 BCE
The South American Mocovi Tribe witnessed the immense destruction caused and accurate tales of it have been passed down to their current descendants.
They named the region Pinguem Nonraltá, (Field of Heaven) to commemorate the day rocks rained down from the sky. Spanish Conquistadors later translated this name to Campo del Cielo
Hundreds of thousands of fragments of meteorite pounded the area. An incredible cosmic display would have turned several square miles of the area into a burning wasteland and created a dozen huge craters, some 100M round still visible today
Since the area was colonised by the Spanish in 1764 there has been a search for the main mass of the meteorite bombardment but only a few fairly heavy meteorites turned up. That was until 1969, when a 37 tonne meteorite (the worlds second largest) named El Chaco was discovered, it then took more than ten years to dig it out of its crater!
Campo del Cielo, is in the region of Gran Chaco Gualamba in Argentina is about 500 miles north-northwest of Buenos Aries. Latitude 27º 39' South, Longitude 61º 44' West.
This meteorite for sale here was an individual rock that fell with all the others on that fateful day.
From analysis, the meteorites have been calculated to be part of an asteroid formed around the same time as the Solar System, about 4.5 Billion Years ago.
It would have been in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter until something knocked it off course and sent it into a 100,000 mile per hour collision course with Earth - to end up in your pocket!!! ;)
These meteorites are known as polycrystalline coarse octahedrite because of their curious Widmanstätten patterns* that are revealed when they're etched
This Group I meteorites total chemical composition is: Iron: 92.63% Nickel: 6.68% Cobalt: 0.43% Phosphorus: 0.25% Gallium: 87ppm Ge: 407ppm Ir: 3.6ppm
This meteorite is a rare example, as it is not a shaving or cut from a larger one, and is individual and intact
* The Widmanstätten pattern is unique to this type of iron meteorite known as octahedrites They are called octahedrites since they are made up out of crystals fitted together in the shape of an octahedron (like two pyramids joined base to base)
The Widmanstätten pattern takes millions of years plus exact and peculiar circumstances to form. The process takes such an extraordinary amount of time and precision it cannot be replicated here on earth even in the worlds most advanced laboratories.
The Widmanstätten pattern is alternating parallel crystal bands of Iron/Nickel alloys arranged in a distinctive triangular pattern.
Recipe for making Widmanstätten patterns:
1) firstly you need an asteroid that has been heated up to at least 1,000 C to melt all the iron and nickel ores.
This doesn't occur naturally in the cold of space and is generally due to one (or a combination) of the following
a) NUCLEAR POWERED: Radioactive elements in the asteroid decay and heat up the entire asteroid
b) CRASH: an impact with another asteroid creates heat and pressure
c) SIZE: the asteroid is big enough for its own internal gravity to create the pressures needed to cause enough heat to melt its insides
2) The molten mixture must then be allowed to cool slowly... VERY SLOWLY… VERY, VERY SLOWLY! This is Solar System Time slowly; around 1ºC every million years!
3) The important slow cooling occurs between 900ºC and 450ºC when two fine crystalline structures are interweaved like a fine ribbon into an octahedral shape
4) The asteroid must melt just the right amount of Nickel and Iron. Neither too much nickel to form just taenite, or too little to form kamacite. The crystal lattices are made from the weave of these two alloys whose only difference is their ratios of iron and nickel. Kamacite - low Nickel content (5 to 15% Ni) Taenite - high Ni (up to 50%)
5) With all these temperatures and ratios in place, taenite is formed first. Then with the unimaginably slow cooling, lines of Kamacite form along certain planes within the taenite lattice
6) All you need now is for the asteroid to be knocked out of its orbit onto a collision course with Earth
7) Then it simply has to come in at the right angle and speed plus be the right size not to be totally destroyed in Earth’s atmosphere. Oh, and then of course after all that... it's got slightly better odds it'll come down in the ocean rather than on land! - To buy either contact us or
This piece of Meteorite was found in Namibia in Africa. All Meteorites in this group are called Gibeon meteorites named after the nearest town to the main find site
It was a part of one of the largest 'recent' meteor showers that is thought to have occurred a few hundred thousand years ago.
Meteorites have been found to be scattered over an area of more than 100km square. It is though a single meteorite the size of a bus broke up in the Earths atmosphere causing smaller fragments to break off and scatter over this part of western Africa.
The original single meteor size and behaviour is estimated by observing the melting and shock induced features on the smaller break-away meteorites that have been found
From analysis, this meteorite has been calculated to be part of an asteroid formed around the same time as the Solar System, about 4.5 Billion Years ago.
It would have been in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter until something knocked it off course and sent it into a 100,000 mile per hour collision course with Earth - to end up in your pocket!!! ;)
Gibson meteorites are known as polycrystalline coarse octahedrite because of their curious Widmanstätten patterns* that are revealed when they're etched
The chemical composition of this Type IVa meteorite is:
Iron: 91.5% Nickel 7.9% Cobalt 0.5% Phosphorus 0,04% Iridium 2.3 ppm Gallium 1.97 ppm Germanium 0.12 ppm
This type of Iron meteorite makes up only 5% of falls. More than 85% of meteorite falls consist of common chondrite.
* The Widmanstätten pattern is unique to this type of iron meteorite known as octahedrites (see above) To buy either contact us or -
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