Natural History - Blue Quartz Crystal Nodule

An irregular meteorite of the chondrite type, not modified by melting. 83 grams, 49 mm



Found East Asia. From the personal collection of a West London, UK, gentleman.

A highly polished rectangular slice of the Seymchan meteorite with an exceptional number of transparent olivine inclusions, repaired. 62.4 grams, 12 cm



From the private collection of a London gentleman, from his grandfather's collection formed before the early 1970s.

The main mass of 272.3 kilograms was found during a survey in June 1967 by geologist F. A. Mednikov. The mass was a triangular-shaped thumb printed meteorite lying among the stones of the brook bed. A second specimen of 51 kilograms was found with a mine detector at a distance of 20 meters from the first in October 1967 by I. H. Markov. During a new expedition in 2004, Dmitri Kachalin recovered about 50 kilograms of new material. Remarkably, about 20% of the new specimens were found to contain olivine crystals, and so revealed the silicate nature of the meteorite. The pallasitic structure was not previously discovered during studies on small metal-only sections of the original mass. The distortion of the Widmanstatten patterns is interpreted as shearing of the superheated meteorite as it broke up in the Earth's atmosphere.

An opened nodule containing a partial Flexicalymene specimen. 126 grams total, 50-60 mm



From a Cambridgeshire, UK, collection. Property of a Cambridgeshire, UK, gentleman.