Complete Slice of an Aletai Meteorite
A Sizable Offering of a Notable Iron Meteorite
Auction Closed
July 17, 03:28 PM GMT
Estimate
12,000 - 18,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Complete Slice of an Aletai Meteorite — A Sizable Offering of a Notable Iron Meteorite
Medium octahedrite – IIIE-an
Altay Prefecture, Xinjiang, China (45° 52' 16"N, 90° 30' 17"E)
679 x 308 x 6 mm (26¾ x 12⅛ x ¼ in). 7.05 kilograms (15.54 lb).
With custom metal stand.
A MASSIVE AND COMPLETE SLICE OF A FAMOUS METEORITE FROM CHINA
This is a massive and exemplary complete slice of an Aletai meteorite. Aletai is a member of one of the smallest subgroups of iron meteorites in the scientific literature, with only sixteen IIIE meteorites on record. Of these sixteen, only two have anomalous chemical abundances and Aletai is one of them, as it contains the highest concentration of gold in the IIIE group (which, it should be pointed out, is still a fraction of a percent of its chemical profile).
Aletai also contains a relatively large amount of iridium, the second densest element known. Because the abundance of iridium in meteorites is much higher than that found in the Earth's crust, it was the unusually large amount of iridium present in the 65 million-year-old Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary that sparked the idea that a massive meteorite impact was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
The entire mass of Aletai is close to 100 tons, and a 28-ton Aletai specimen is the 5th largest single meteorite found on Earth. The strewn field was so vast — 430 kilometers (267 miles) in length — that for some time different specimens from this meteorite shower had different names (Armanty, Xinjiang, and Ulasitai). As it has now been determined that each of these meteorites originated from the same event, they have all been renamed Aletai.
REFERENCES: