Sikhote Alin 56.74g Incredibly Torn and Tortured Iron Meteorite

Description

Item for auction is a
56.74g
Sikhote Alin iron meteorite that was witnessed to fall in the Sikhote Alin Mountains of Russia around 10:30 am on February 12, 1947.
This incredible specimen has a sculpted, flight streamlined, bifurcated shape that tells its story of becoming separated from a larger mass during ablative fall toward earth. The notch on one side of the stone is where a kamacite/taenite lath fit before the fragmentation event occurred. Think of this iron’s Widmanstatten Pattern as a 3-dimensional puzzle of interlocking metal laths or fingers. When the ram pressure of the atmosphere exceeded the tensile strength of the incoming iron meteoroid, it shattered, liberating this piece from its larger mass’ matrix, with enough time to develop its own flight markings before falling to earth. I’ve seen about 10-15 of these kinds of interlocking pieces or liberated pieces in 20 years so they are not that common.
There are a lot of Sikhote Alin meteorites on ebay that look good from far, but are far from good - this specimen gets better the closer you look at it! The patina on this iron cleaned, and has a grayish-blue color. Its very difficult to find specimens of this calibre today, there are very little pitting or oxidation on it. Item comes with a Big Kahuna Meteorites Certificate of Authenticity. Scale cube in photo is 1cm on each side, and not included in sale. Big Kahuna combines shipping, and addresses must be in the English language, to facilitate customs input at US Postal Service. Non-English addresses cannot be shipped, and may incur additional fees for handling. We no longer ship to China or Italy.
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