Iron, Coarse Octahedrite
Gran Chaco, Argentina
The famous nickel-iron meteorite, Campo del Cielo, fell to the Earth over 4,000 years ago in a mountainous region 500 miles north-northwest of Buenos Aries, in one of the largest and undoubtedly most dramatic falls in the last 10,000 years. This goodly sized sphere has been polished and etched to show its Widmanstatten pattern which results from two alloys of nickel etching at different rates. An interesting, very large (1.75X1.2-inch) black troilite inclusion is present. The ablation of troilite inclusions causes the thumbprint-like regmaglypts, which give iron-nickel meteorites their unique character. There are no iron-nickel rocks on Earth that exhibit a Widmanstatten pattern; the iron-nickel had to cool at the very slow rate of several degrees per million years to allow enough time for the nickel alloys, Kamacite and Taenite, to separate. Offered on a plastic display stand.
Weighs 1,002 grams; measures 2.3in