Aletai Meteorite | Partial Slice of Aletai (Armanty) — A Most Notable Iron Meteorite

This is an exemplary specimen of an important meteorite. Aletai is a member of one of the smallest subgroups of iron meteorites in scientific literature; there are only sixteen IIIE meteorites on record. Of these, only two have anomalous chemical abundances and Aletai is one, as it contains the highest concentration of gold in the IIIE group (which should be pointed out is still a fraction of a percent of its chemical profile).

Aletai also contains a relatively large amount of Iridium — the second densest element known. Because the abundance of iridium in meteorites is much higher than in the Earth's crust, it was the unusually high abundance of iridium present in the 65 million-year-old Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary which inspired the notion that it was a massive meteorite impact 65 million years ago that was responsible for the distinction of the dinosaurs. 

The entire mass of the Aletai event is close to 100 tons and the 5^th largest single meteorite on Earth is a 28 ton Aletai. The strewn field was so vast — close to 500 kilometers — that for some time different specimens from this meteorite shower had different names (e.g., Armanty, Xinjiang and Ulasitai). When it was determined they all originate from the same event, they were all renamed Aletai.

As revealed in the images for this lot, if one moves a light — or the slice — just a little, the reflectivity of the meteorite’s two major alloys changes and the specimen shimmers. While nearly all meteorites with an octahedral crystalline structure will respond similarly (see lots 91 and 100), rarely will they captivate as much as a sample of Aletai. This is in part due to the accents provided by the attenuated, mirror finish, inclusions of the mineral schreibersite. Many researchers believe schreibersite was the primary source of phosphorus — delivered to Earth via meteorites billions of years ago — to enable life. This is a superlative partial slice of a wondrous meteorite.