The Angrite Meteorite

Sahara Angrite 99555 40x Cross Polarization

A while back I posted about my Saskatchewan (Buzzard Coulee) meteorite. Well a reader..... we'll call him Mike...mostly because that is his name, emailed me telling me he had a Buzzard Coulee meteorite as well. So we conversed back and forth about meteorites and the like and he happened to ask me whether or not I had ever imaged my thin slices in cross polarization, I thought to myself, "who's doing what now?", and he explained.

Sahara Angrite 99555 thin slice

I had seen images of colorful meteorite thin slices before, but never knew how they got the pretty colors to show, some are just to die for. Long story short Mike sent me a couple of films to do some imaging with, for free, very cool.


Microscope and alien

You sandwich your meteorite thin slice in between the polarization films, which does it's magic and allows Meteoriticists (meteor scientists) to determine the mineral and chemical composition of the meteorite therefore giving them a better idea how the meteorite formed in the first place. I like taking the images because I am creating art, they kind of remind me of abstract art or stained glass windows.

Sahara Angrite 99555 40x Cross Polarization

Angrites are the rarest, most sought after, most mysterious and studied meteorite in the world, to date only around 50 pounds worldwide have been collected. The only thing they know for sure is that they came from a large body near the Sun. Some Meteoriticists believe they originated from Mercury, no conclusive proof either way but we should know a little more when Messenger reaches orbit around Mercury in March 2011 and does some surface composition analysis, giving the Meteoriticists another piece to the Angrite puzzle, compare the known samples of Angrites with the Messenger data to see if there are any similarities.




Okay, I'm going to do something a little bit different, going to step out of my comfort zone, instead of posting a reflective water animation I'm going to do a rotating square collage, I know, I know, call me crazy and wild, but I thought I would switch it up a bit.

Meteorites and Terrorists

Microscopic Thin Slice NWA 2140-CV3 Meteorite

The above image is a thin slice of a North West African meteorite put together at the All- Russian Geological Institute (VSEGI) thin section workshop. Quite interesting how they make thin sections, they cut down a thin slice of a meteorite, glue it on a microscopic slide then grind it down further so light passes through it so mineral composition research can be done on it. Got my hands on some slides and took some images with my microscope, notice the little black spherules, one theory is when a meteor breaks up and dissolves coming through our atmosphere the spherules survive because of their smallness and low surface area to become micrometeorites to land in your backyard to be collected be me as the below image.

Apparently I'm not the only one collecting meteorites from North West Africa, aka the Sahara Desert, Evil doer terrorists have finally caught on to the value of rocks from space, it's all about supply and demand, meteorites are very rare and there are tons of private collectors with lots of money willing to pay top dollar for these precious space rocks not knowing or caring that they are funding terrorist activities. Now why North West Africa meteorites? Well in the Sahara you have the perfect backdrop for finding meteorites, they stand out, no ground cover to hide the falls and the climate is such that there is no erosion for up to 50,000 years, and they even have maps of the best locals to find them, all the legal finds have to record the area in which the meteorite was found, below image.

Scientists are a little ripped about having to compete with the private collectors to obtain material for scientific research, there is a lot they can learn from meteorites such as the early formation of the solar system and our planet over 4.5 billion years ago. Some institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution won't import meteorites from North Africa knowing this area has become a haunt for smugglers and terrorists. So what can we learn from all this, well for one thing I am not a terrorist, don't belong to any cell group I'm aware of, and I have come by my NWA meteorite by legal means, but also if a meteorite lands on your car or house, it's all good, just think of the money you can make, take care of the deductible and money left over.

I'll leave you with an infrared animated image of a Sunrise I took a couple days ago.