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

Tuesday 6 June 2017

Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale, List 205

Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale, List 205

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487                                                                                                                              
……………………………………………………LIST 205

June 6, 2017

Dear collectors,

Here is a second offering pulled from a batch of material I recently got from a collector who has decided to trim his collection a bit.

I am going to try something new with this offering. I have taken a group photo of the items on this list (plus the 190g Wolf Creek just because I mentioned it). I have arranged them in the photo alphabetically from left to right, top to bottom (the Bassikounou is the top left item, then the Chinese Tektites, etc.).

Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale, List 205
(Click on Image to Enlarge)
BASSIKOUNOU, Mauritania: (H5). Fell October 16, 2006. Tkw = around 80 kilograms.
Wow! This little piece was obviously picked up right after the fall. It shows heavy, super fresh black primary crust with some hints of orientation (the presence of a “roll-over rim” around one side of the stone). The crust is complete except for one small (around 4mm x 2mm) late fall chip in one part of the roll-over rim that shows a bright white interior. Nice really fresh specimen of this fall.
13.6 gram fresh, complete individual – 25mm x 19mm x 17mm - $80

CHINESE TEKTITES:
Here are three specimens that are indeed quite different from each other in shape and textures. I’ll give a bit of description for each in their individual listings.
16.6 grams irregular. This is my smallest and weirdest shaped piece. I was one of the first people to have Chinese Tektites in the more “recent” times. A Chinese mineral dealer wanted to trade me equal weights of Chinese meteorites for US meteorites (this was back in the days I had lots of different weathered meteorites from Kansas, Texas and such). Of coarse I said “sure”. Next year, he brought a big 50 pound or so box of “meteorites” insisting that I trader him 100 pounds of US meteorites for them. Unfortunately, he had brought me a box of Chinses Tektites. We had some pretty heated discussions as to why I couldn’t give him equal weight of actual meteorites for tektites. Towards the end of the show (this happened in Tucson) we came to some kind of agreement where I ended up with the box of tektites. Not a bad thing. At that time, Chinese tektites were not available anywhere on the market. Another plus was that the things looked completely different than any other tektites on the market. They had really weird shapes, deep fine grooving/ etching texture (on one side anyway. Most, as this piece, had a slightly curved smooth side -  as if they were once part of a large smooth inside sphere that latter broke apart). One person commented that the things looked like some kind of strange “rubble”. Anyway, this is a piece from those days (possibly even that original batch as the previous owner got it from me). I do have some of these “original batch” pieces around here somewhere so if there are more people that want a similar piece to this one after it sells, I’ll try and dig them up and make them available.
16.6 grams irregular shape– 40mm x 25mm x 10mm - $5
b) 36.5gram quasi tear-drop. This one is a long stretched out piece that definitely narrows out towards the tail. It has a good amount of the typical fine deep grooving/ pitting typical for Chinese tektites.
36.5g grams quasi tear-drop – 75mm x 20mm x 15mm - $10
c) 110.9 gram tear drop/ hershey’s kiss. Now this one is really nice! It has a super shape. It is a cross between a tear drop and hershey’s kiss. Overall, it has the distinct tear-drop shape (nice long thin tail) but has a large head concentrated at one end (no gradual thinning on this one).  A really nice piece that I considered keeping myself.
110.9 gram tear-drop/ hershey’s kiss – 80mm x 40mm x 30mm - $50

GOLD BASIN, Arizona: (L4). Found 1995. Tkw = 125+ kilograms.
There were a lot of pieces of this meteorite recovered, but I don’t see many available today. This is supposedly one of (if not the) oldest known U.S. strewn fields – having possibly fallen 20 to 25 thousand years ago. Looking at this piece, you’d never guess that kind of age. This is a nice solid individual/ fragment that has a roughly 45mm x 20mm cut face that shows a nice, quite fresh, mottled gray and brown matrix with quite a lot of metal visible. The exterior is also fairly fresh. This shows several levels of crusting. The heaviest (primary) crust on the very back still shows flow lines. Another surface is completely crusted but has a less smooth, rounded texture so it is not fully developed as the “primary” crust. Two more faces look like they may be old fractured surfaces, though one does seem to show some smoothing so it might (actually both could be) be a very light tertiary crusted surface.
131.6 gram individual with polished face – 45mm x 30mm x 30mm - $130

IMPACTITE, Monturaqui crater, Chile.
Here are two pieces in one display container. One is a 7.2 gram complete piece that is natural as found. The other is a small (1.5 gram) cut fragment (cut face is about 15mm x 12mm) that shows the melted/ brecciated structure plus at least one clear nickel-iron bleb (a bit of the iron meteorite that formed the crater).
8.7 grams: two specimens. One natural, one cut - $15

PHILIPPINITE: Tektite from the Philippine Islands.
This is likely from the Rizal provence (making it a “Rizalite”). It shows lots of the wide/ deep grooves of tektites from this area. However, this one is a completely odd shape rather than the usual round specimens. There are some areas of “modern” chipping on one end, but the bulk of the specimen is natural ancient surfaces (so it is not merely from a weirdly broken originally round specimen). Interesting piece.
20.9 grams – 40mm x 25mm x 20mm - $20

SAHARA (98280): likely (L6).
Unfortunately, this one never got fully reported. That is kind of a shame as this is actually a really nice specimen. It is quite fresh. The exterior shows nice dark (all be it a little dirty in spots) gray/ chocolate brown fusion crust (with only light wind-polishing). The interior has a great breccia structure showing light brown angular to somewhat rounded clasts (of all sizes up to around 1 centimeter or so) surrounded by black shock veins/ melt material. I sold a couple similar (but NWA) end pieces in Tucson for closer to $2/g.
53.8 gram end piece – 40mm x 25mm x 20mm - $60

WOLF CREEK, Australia: Found 1947.
Shale balls (oxidized iron meteorite) and fragments is about the only thing you will ever see from this crater. I think only a kilogram or so of fresh metal was found. This is a nice little basically complete shale ball as found. This was originally bought from me years ago. I have not had a lot of pieces of Wolf Creek over the years but far fewer small piece like this that weren’t just angular fragments that came from a larger ball that got broken apart. A quick check shows that I offered some larger similar pieces on a list a little over a year ago. Further checking shows that I have only one specimen remaining from that offering (a 190g complete shale ball for $200). This is a nice little piece for someone that wants a small yet still rounded complete shale ball.
25.5 gram shale ball as found – 30mm x 25mm x 15mm - $40