Goldfinger Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Hi Guys-Thought some of you might be interested in this. Turns out a specimen in a mineral collection was actually a meteorite and the only one found to date... How do you put a value on something like that and I wonder what they listed as the specimen identification on the original label?http://www.space.com...asicrystal.htmlMakes me want to go out and look for my own quasicrystal meteorite. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Au Seeker Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 Hmmmm, I wonder how many of those have been crushed up and panned out looking for gold!!! Skip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fredmason Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 well, you would never know from looking...that creates a whole new class of meteorite-wrongs....to collect.fred Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikestang Posted January 4, 2012 Share Posted January 4, 2012 I wonder how many more people are going to find crystals now and claim them to be meteorites... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldfinger Posted January 5, 2012 Author Share Posted January 5, 2012 I wonder how many more people are going to find crystals now and claim them to be meteorites...Mike- Ain't that the truth?? We already have enough of those and It's bad enough now. Just wait a few months after word of this get out.... Come to think of it, I have some specimens that resemble those in that picture... Seriously though, I just wonder what they labeled that specimen as before it was identified as a meteorite.Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goldfinger Posted January 5, 2012 Author Share Posted January 5, 2012 I just had to email the guy who did the main research on this specimen about what the identification was before they discovered it was really an ancient meteorite. This is his reply.Dear Steve,many thanks for your interest in our discovery.The sample we studied was a Museum sample. It entered in the collections of the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence (Italy) in 1990 and was catalogued as 'khatyrkite' and coming from the Koryak Mts, Russia.Khatyrkite is a mineral of formula CuAl2 first identified by Razin et al. in 1985.We were very lucky to have a sample of this exotic mineral in our collections because it is really very rare...The natural quasicrystal (later officially named icosahedrite) was found closely associated to khatyrkite (as micron-sized grains).Thank you again.Best regards, Luca BindiI didn't ask him but a single question but it sounds like this specimen might actually be brecciated with the quasicrystal (icosahedrite) contained within what looks like quartz or some host rock. Any experts out there have an opinion on this?Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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