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Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
This it seems the nickel was one key ingredient for the pamor, and if the appearance was 'meteoric'..all the better. Since nickel is an earthly element it does seem it would be difficult to differentiate between the earthly matter and extraterrestrial.
Question: are there unidentified elements or minerals found only in extraterrestrial material, such as the rocks from mars or the moon?
Best regards,
Jim
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Hi Jim,
You will find there are no "unearthly" elements in meteorites. What sets them appart is the "chemical mix" in which they were formed (and the physical conditions of formation as well).
If you were to see a meteorite sitting on the ground for any time at all, you may very well pass it up as a common rock (I am including all meteorite types). As you may have noticed that all of the meteorites mentioned in this thread that were used as sword making material, were witnessed falls. The cosmic connection was made becaused of an observed event. If they had not been observed, even if some kind of crater forming event occured... I think someone would have scrached their head and not reconize the interesting stones laying there as being from above. I believe this is apart of the issue at hand. By simple observation, how do we tell if a Keris or sword contains meteoric iron.
For me, I do not need meteoric iron to make a cosmic connection, take a look around you... everything you see, the
elements that make us and everything around us were forged in a star.
I have seen some of the Gibeon meteorites that had simply been hammered into shape to make a spear... and when polished and acid etched, still showed the Widmanstatten structure, meaning it had not been forged or heated to any large degree or it would have destroyed this internal crystal structure. I am not an expert... so correct me if I am wrong, it maybe that the finer crystal structural octahedrites (vs. medium and coarse) may be more malleable (Gibeon is a fine octahedrite type IVA)?
If the meteorite in India would not stand below the hammer, and fell too pieces, then it was the "luck of the fall" or is it draw?
