Glass cased meteorite

Charliecheswick · May 16, 2021

Found this in a collector's mixed space lot

Wondering if it looks legit or not

Any thoughts appreciated

Red-Coat · May 17, 2021

Welcome to Tnet

Well, it might be meteoritic, but I have some observations.

If ‘Nebula’ is the company that packaged this up then it’s not one I’ve heard of as an established supplier of meteorites. It could however be one of many companies that supplies geological and other curiosities to ‘gem and bead’ gift shops. Those kinds of items have usually been bulk-purchased from Morocco and have various degrees of authenticity/reliability in terms of identification.

I find it extremely odd that someone would go to the trouble of packaging it so nicely without any indication of the location where it was found or what kind of meteorite it might be. Even if it is meteoritic, a collector would have little interest in it on that basis. The ‘meteorite facts’ on the label are all over the place. Looks like 'out of context' information that has been found with a bit of Googling by someone who has no understanding of what they were looking at.

For starters it’s not an ‘individual’. That term is reserved for a meteorite that arrives as part of a shower, or from disintegration of a larger meteorite during atmospheric passage, which represents a discrete mass (and with primary and/or secondary fusion crust over its entire surface.) Not a section cut from something larger, which this one clearly is. To say it’s a ‘nebula meteorite’ is pretty meaningless. All dust and gas clouds that condensed into primitive protoplanetary material which ultimately reaches us as meteorites has its origin in a solar nebula.

There is no way that it can be claimed to be 4.565 billion years old (to three decimal places), or that it travelled 400 million km from the asteroid belt at 176,000 km/hr unless it has been precisely typed and attributed. All of those values would be dependent on knowing exactly what it is… and they’re not even ‘typical average’ numbers.

Regarding the appearance, there are no obvious chondrules and no evidence of shiny metal on the cut surface. It might be a piece of a brecciated chondrite which has partially melted and then heavily weathered after arrival. In that case, a generic Saharan/NWA origin would be probable. To me, what it most resembles is meteoritic iron which has seen terrestrial alteration and largely converted to iron shale. That kind of material is commonly found at large impact sites such as Canyon Diablo in Arizona or Wolfe Creek in Australia. I’ve seen it in Nantan specimens from China too and some Saharan/NWA material.

Charliecheswick · May 18, 2021

Many thanks for the great info, it's an area I know squat about so it's good to know it's a possibility

There was also a small bag full of tiny glass looking objects with it, can't think what the he'll they could be

Everything had a space theme, so wondering if it has any connection to meteorites ?