Meteoric iron used for keris's vs. for Indian weapons

[Rick]

Originally Posted by fearn

I'm trying to remember where I read this: it was one of the contemporary knife catalogs, and the name escapes me at the moment (argh! I'll edit it in when I remember it!)

This is a sideline to the "meteoric iron" thread, but it is about the high nickel iron used to create pamor. Apparently, the volcanoes on Java cough out nodules of high-nickel iron, and that is what is (was) used for most keris blades, presumably along with low-nickel iron from other sources.

Apparently, westerners used to think that high-nickel iron only came from meteorites, and so among westerners, the story was that the pamor iron all came from meteoric iron.

This doesn't contradict the idea that some keris and other blades were made from meteorites. It simply says that most pamor blades have a strictly terrestrial origin, and Indonesia isn't a magnet for meteoric bombardment.

F

Driven to Google yet again .

Here's a page that discusses the composition of the magma that is released by Mt Merapi in Jawa :
http://www.ipgp.jussieu.fr/~beaudu/vsi/merview.html
And another locating the volcanos in the archipelago .
http://www.volcanolive.com/indonesia3.html
Last , a cross section , lots of Iron in the earth's core .
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/hazard/...omposition.gif