LOT 1910

Natural History - Campo del Cielo Meteorite

FELL 6000-5000 YEARS B.P.

1 1/2 in. (55 grams, 40 mm).

Nickel-iron meteorite (IAB); supplied in a cardboard specimen tray with information ticket. [No Reserve]

From Chaco Province, Argentina, found 1576.
From an old Bristol collection.

See Graham, Bevan and Hutchison ed., Catalogue of Meteorites, Natural History Museum, 1985, p.88, for details of this fall.

A crater field of roughly 26 craters was found in the vicinity of this crater, which is estimated to date to 4-5 thousand years BP. The age of the meteorite itself is thought to be c.4.5 billion years, formed as part of the development of this solar system. The largest two fragments, the 30.8 ton Gancedo and 28.8 ton El Chaco, are among the heaviest meteorite masses ever recovered on Earth. In 1576, the governor of a province in Northern Argentina commissioned the military to search for a large mass of iron, which it was believed the local people claimed had fallen from the sky and which they used for their weapon production. The expedition discovered a large mass of metal which was assumed to be an iron mine and brought back a few samples, which were described as being of unusual purity. Following the legends, in 1774 Don Bartolomé Francisco de Maguna rediscovered the iron mass. He himself did not believe that the stone had fallen from the sky and assumed that it had formed by a volcanic eruption. However, he sent the samples to the Royal Society of London. In 1990 it became protected by law.