Blaine Reed Meteorites- List #80 New Lunar

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………LIST 80

November 24, 2009

Dear Collectors,

I am back form my trips and, hopefully, should be home for awhile as I need to start doing inventory work soon. This is a required but tedious job that takes a good week or so to accomplish (I have a lot of stuff stored in a lot of different places and it all has to be weighed and cataloged). I should find a bunch of things to offer on the next couple lists from this work though, so look forward to those over the next few weeks.

This is a single, but special item offering. It should have gone out last Tuesday, but I was not home yet from the Socorro show as I spent an extra day getting home to let the snow get removed from the 11,000 foot high passes I have to cross. I got this special material very recently from Matt and I am thrilled to have it (I am purchasing a piece for my collection). It is the cheapest Lunar material I have ever offered (at least in nice slices). I don't have a real large amount of this, a couple tens of grams is all, so let me know as soon as possible if you want me to set aside a piece for you (I realize that with the holidays coming up, some of you may need extra time to pay for any pieces you might like for yourself, so PLEASE don't be afraid to ask).

NWA (4734): Lunar basalt. Found 2001. Tkw = 1372 grams.
A number of crusted fragments of this Moon rock have been found over the past couple years, but little has been available to collectors until quite recently. I had known about this stuff (and had been waiting for a few grams I was supposed to be receiving through a trade deal I had arranged a couple years ago) but had only seen a couple photos and descriptions. These descriptions generally called this stuff "Monzo-gabbro" . It is not. It is actually a basalt. A gabbro is a sub-surface cooled igneous rock where as basalt is extruded onto and cools on the surface. This stuff has a crystal texture that shows that it is a surface cooled (extruded volcanic rock) and not a slower cooled sub-surface (intrusive) rock. Its overall chemistry also shows that this cannot be properly called a gabbro either. The overall appearance of this material is surprisingly similar to Zagami - a Mars surface cooled basalt rock. About the only differences are that this has a bit more tan coloration to it and generally shows more fine black shock lines on the cut faces. Some of these pieces show some black crust along their edges (mostly the larger ones, unfortunately) , I will make not of those below.
1) Slices:
a) .04 grams - 4mm x 2.5mm x 1.5mm - $38
b) .10 grams - 9mm x 3mm x 2mm - $95
c) .21 grams - 10mm x 5mm x 2mm - $200
d) .32 grams - 10mm x 7mm x 2mm - $300
e) .63 grams - 18mm x 7mm x 2mm - $595
f) 1.32 grams - 20mm x 14mm x 2mm - $1235 - about 12mm along edge crusted.
g) 2.73 grams - 32mm x 17mm x 2mm - $2500 - about 30% of edge crusted.
h) 5.86 grams - 37mm x 30mm x 2mm - $5300 - about 40% of edge crusted.

2) Cut fragments:
a) 1.10 grams - 12mm x 9mm x 4mm - $1030
b) 1.67 grams - 30mm x 8mm x 3mm - $1560