Iron meteorite, medium octahedrite - IIIE-AN, Xinjiang, China
The exotic Aletai meteorite landed in the northwest corner of China not far from the border of Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan. Aletai is an anomalous iron meteorite and this is a breathtaking large complete slice.
This otherworldly lattice is the result of the molecules of the different alloys having enough time to orient into their crystalline structure. Nickel-iron crytals require a cooling curve of millions of years and as such a circumstance does not come remotely close to occurring on or near Earth’s surface, this pattern is diagnostic in the identification of a meteorite. As a result of variances in meteorites from different meteorite groups exhibit different patterns. If you move this slice around in the light, the lathes of the alloys reflect light differently resulting in a lively presentation.
Aletai contains the most gold of any other meteorite in its classification group, but before you get too excited gold is among Aletai’s trace elements. Aletai also contains a relatively large amount of Iridium — the second densest element known. There is a lot more iridium in iron meteorites than what occurs on Earth, and the high abundance of iridium in the 65 million-year-old KT boundary inspired scientists to wonder if it was a meteorite impact 65 million years ago that was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs, thus providing the opportunity for the evolution of human life. As it further regards life, Aletai contains the phosphorus-rich mineral schreibersite which also does not occur on Earth too often. It is believed by many scientists that schreibersite — shipped to Earth via meteorites billions of years ago — was the primary source of phosphorus on Earth which helped to enable life itself to begin.
This is a fantastic large slice featuring an otherworldly mosaic pattern which is an exemplary display of an Aletai meteorite’s crystalline fingerprint.
667 x 358 x 4mm (26 x 14 x 0.1 in.) and 6.145 kg (13.5 lbs)
Provenance: Labenne Collection, Paris
