Tuesday 20 June 2017

Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale- List 206

Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale- List 206

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
……………………………………………………LIST 206
June 20, 2017

Dear collectors,
Here is a third offering pulled together from a batch of material I recently got from a collector who has decided to trim his collection a bit.

For this offering (and hopefully most others in the future) I will put a group photo in the photo archives in the brmeteorites_list Yahoo group. It will be creatively titled “List 206”. For those of you that acquire my offerings through the blog posting (done by a friend in Japan – Dirk Ross) the photo will likely be directly connected/ displayed with this particular posting.

(Click on Image to Enlarge)
Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale- List 206
Edeowie Glass, Impact glass, South Australia.
I had never heard of this material until I received this specimen. It is not certain what formed this rare material but it does contain quartz that shows shock effects, strongly hinting at an impact origin (rather than as lightning formed fulgurite, which is the next most popular formation theory). Small spots of this glass are found on top of what looks like burnt/ scorched sediments in the small area where this material is found. The structure of this glass: highly fused top, poorly fused, frothy mid zone down to local dirt and rocks stuck to the bottom, closely resembles pieces of trinitite glass (the stuff formed by the world’s first nuclear explosion). This suggests that, rather than a true impact crater glass, this material likely formed (like trinitite) by a large low-altitude blast – similar to (but perhaps larger) than Tunguska. This interesting piece is pretty much exactly matches the description of a typical specimen of this unusual glass.
3.7 gram fragment as found – 25mm x 16mm x 12mm - $10  SOLD

GRADY (1937), New Mexico: (H3). Found 1937, Tkw = 9.3 kilograms.
Here are three small but quite fresh fragments of this scarce meteorite. Inspecting them with magnification reveals all kinds of light to medium gray chondrules in a light gray matrix. These pieces are all around 10mm x 5mm to 10mm x 9mm in their larger surfaces.
1.17 grams – three fragments - $15

HENBURY IMPACT GLASS, Henbury craters, Australia.
The label with these specimens says “impactite” but these are NOT the usual frothy quasi-glassy impactites that have been available from these craters. These show obvious black glass. The larger (.6 grams – 15mm x 9mm x 6mm) is almost entirely glass, only showing a few small spots of attached orange dirt or rock. Frankly, this specimen looks much like an Irghizite – having a stretched, melt flow look to it. The other piece (.7 grams – 11mm x 9mm x 9mm) looks like a piece of orangish brown rock (the reason it is heavier than the other piece despite being smaller) that has a thick coating of black glass on one side. Interesting items and certainly not the typical “impactites”.
2 pieces in a display container - $25

NWA (unknown): L or LL3.
I sure wish the classification info for this one didn’t get lost. It is obviously something that someone thought was special. They took the time (and high expense) to have this cut with a wire-saw. None the less, this is a really nice specimen for showing chondrules. It is absolutely loaded with them. They come in all kinds of sizes and all kinds of colors. This really reminds me of Wells, Texas (LL3.3) and Ragland, New Mexico (LL3.4). This is also a complete slice of whatever mass it was cut from. This is likely something quite special but priced pretty much like a common LL3 here.
16.8 gram slice – 52mm x 50mm x 3mm - $100

SUEVITE, Nordlingen Ries Craters, Germany.
Here is a slice of this impact breccia from the almost 15 million year old impact crater that was the source of the Moldavites. This contains dark gray areas that are fragments of impact glass, in a matrix of light gray to white (mostly small) fragments of rock. This has epoxy on the back (not visible unless removed from the display box this is in) as I think that this was going to be used for making thin-sections at one point. Actually, I have two specimens to pick from. I am only listing one here but will have both in the “group photo” for this offering. The one that the measurements below are for is for the smaller (and thinner) one on the left in the photo.
4.5 gram rectangular slice in plastic box – 30mm x 20mm x 3mm - $10

TATAHOUINE, Tunisia: HED achondrite (Diogenite). Fell June 27, 1931. Tkw = 13.5+ kilograms.
Tatahouine is strange stuff. It has a really obvious bright green color with gray shock veins running through it. Here are a couple natural pieces in a small plastic display box that look very nice together. One piece (2.1 grams) is fairly flat/ angular and has a face that shows the shock veins very nicely. The other piece (1.8 grams) has a sculpted/ rounded edges shape and shows (on close inspection – a 10X lens works fine) quite a few tiny (around 1mm or under) patches of black fusion crust! A nice display pair.
2 pieces - 3.9 grams total in small display box - $60

ORGUEIL, France: Carbonaceous chondrite (CI1). Fell May 14, 1864. Tkw = 10.5+ kilograms.
Here are some of the “usual” (none of this material is easy to come by) small fragments and crumbs of this really strange material. They look like fragments of charcoal brickettes. I keep hoping that they will come out with some detailed results from landing on that comet awhile ago, as I suspect that those analysis results will likely show strong similarities to this material. Alas, such research work grinds slowly. It did take some years before analysis results from the DAWN mission (now orbiting Ceres) showed us that YES! Most H.E.D. meteorites do likely come from Vesta. Hopefully, we will soon have some information as to whether or not the CI1 stuff really is cometary or not. Anyway, these fragments and bits are in a capsule that is in a plastic display box.
.037 grams of fragments in a capsule in a display box - $90