Extraterrestrial Crystal Ball — Crystalline Structure Of Seymchan Pallasite Dramatized In Sphere

Seymchan meteorites originate from the core-mantle boundary of an asteroid that broke apart in early solar system history. Following pinball-like impacts in space, a large mass was serendipitously bumped into an Earth-crossing orbit. Having arrived on Earth thousands of years ago, specimens of the Seymchan meteorite were first discovered in 1967 near the settlement of Seymchan in the Magadan District of Russia — the locality of Stalin’s gulags.

Now offered is a marvelous three-dimensional display of a Seymchan pallasite’s internal structure as revealed in a large crystal ball. Unlike the current example, most pallasites are homogenous with olivine and peridot (gem-quality olivine) evenly dispersed within the sparkling metallic matrix from the parent asteroid’s core (see lots 2 and 23). This specimen features a most unusual tentacular graphite inclusion embedded within an asymmetric sprinkling of crystals — which explains why Seymchan is referred to as a rare transitional pallasite; it’s a transitional zone where olivine distribution is extremely irregular.

This specimen was derived from a Seymchan meteorite that underwent a number of stages of cutting, grinding and polishing in a sphere-making apparatus, resulting in — as a result of the dispersion of its crystals — not only a unique crystal ball from outer space, but one of the very best examples of a transitional pallasitic sphere this size known to exist.