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Iron Meteorite – IC
North Yilgarn, Western Australia
202 x 376 x 5 mm (8 x 15 x 0.25 in.)
1,085.8 grams (2.33 lbs)
Mount Dooling meteorites were first discovered in 1909 by gold prospector A.P. Brophy in the gold fields of Western Australia — an appropriate residence for such a singularly exquisite meteorite.
Mount Dooling is a member of the exceedingly rare “1C” chemical group — less than 1% (just 14) of all iron meteorites are members of the 1C group — i.e., the only known samples of a particular asteroid that once existed between Mars and Jupiter. For the core to have been liberated from its surrounding mantle and crust, the parent body had to have shattered following a collision with another asteroid.
The latticework seen is the result of a slow cooling rate that provided sufficient time — millions of years — for the molecules of alloys to align to form their crystalline fingerprint. As different iron meteorites have different chemical compositions and cool at different rates, they frequently exhibit different crystalline patterns. And the presence of any such pattern is diagnostic in the identification of an iron meteorite as such a long cooling curve can only occur in the core of a asteroid…and theoretically within Earth’s core and that of other solid planets.
As it regards the Mount Dooling lattice in particular, the beautiful, interwoven, complex array of metallic grains seen is the result of 1C meteorites having lower abundances of trace elements and a relatively high abundance of carbon when compared to other iron meteorites.
While Mount Dooling’s lattice is inarguably quite something to behold, it’s the shape of the meteorite from which this slice was cut that makes this specimen so special. The result is a spectacular slice of an iron meteorite with Mount Dooling’s celebrated crystalline fingerprint circumscribed by the meteorite’s milk chocolate-hued exterior rim.
Provenance: Macovich Collections of Meteorites, NYC.
