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Description : OLDER THAN EARTH, A DECORATIVE STONE METEORITE — NWA 15527 Chondrite – H5, Sahara Desert, North West Africa This massive meteorite is “fresh” in that it was just approved by the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society last month. The large stone meteorite now offered, NWA 15527 was recovered in the Sahara Desert by Berber nomads and later sold to a Moroccan meteorite dealer. It is the 15,527th meteorite to be recovered from the North West African grid of the Sahara Desert to be analyzed, classified, vetted and published in the Meteoritical Bulletin — the journal of record. The analysis was conducted by Dr. Anthony Irving, among the world’s foremost classification experts. Originating from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, in terms of mass this meteorite is within the top 2% of all stone meteorites and, at about 4.56 billion years, is older than Earth. It is largely blanketed in a dark hued patina, dappled with mango-hued accents — but the surface texture and sheen are not consistent throughout: this meteorite is a ventifact — it has been sculpted by Earth’s winds over a period of at least many hundreds of years. The markedly different surface textures of the top and bottom of the meteorite are readily explainable. The uppermost part of the meteorite protruded out of the Earth’s surface, the giveaway is the smooth glossy desert varnish. The rest of the meteorite was embedded in the desert floor. Shallow regmaglypts — the thumbprint indentations which are an aerodynamic artifact from frictional melting while traversing the Earth’s atmosphere — in the lower portion of the meteorite have been completely smoothed away at the meteorite’s crown. Moreover, the peak of the meteorite tapers revealing a singularly fascinating accoutrement. As a result of a massive impact, metal within the meteorite melted and flowed together to form a thin sheet which transverses the mass. This would never have been seen were it not for the sandblasting having carved away the stone to reveal the metal. We do not know of another example that provides such a vivid reveal of a sheet of injected metal than that now seen. If this meteorite were not a ventifact, the metal would not have been noticed and if cut on almost any angle only the thinnest vein of metal would be seen coursing through the silicate mass — a presentation not remotely as unique as what is now revealed. A small sample of the meteorite was removed from the reverse for classification and official repository purposes. The cut and polished face reveals a dark matrix in which a galaxy of small flecks of iron-nickel are suspended. This meteorite also evidences having been extensively heated on its parent asteroid, its chondrules partly recrystallized with individual mineral grains made more chemically homogenous, making this specimen a textbook presentation of an H5 chondrite. Accompanied by a custom armature, this extraterrestrial abstract form was sculpted by forces both on and off Earth and its story makes a conversation piece for the ages. Christie's would like to thank Dr. Alan E. Rubin at the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles for his assistance in preparing this catalogue. 431 x 213 x 183mm (17 x 8.33 x 7.25 in.) and 32.34 kg (71.25 lbs)
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