Why this rock is probably not a meteorite:
The rock has what appears to be a glassy crust, and it's
dark. The ridges and protrusions of the rock have been partially
smoothed
by abrasion or ablation. But, the rock has vesicles and meteorites
don't have vesicles.
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What is it?
Don't know. The finder of this rock says that it is one of many that
he found in an elliptical pattern in a dry lake bed that didn't have
other stones. That's a good story - one consistent with a meteorite
strewn field.
Note added later: The finder had the rock analyzed. It has
the composition of a terrestrial basalt. The rock was found in a desert.
That means that the glassy "crust" is really desert
varnish.
Note and photos added even later: The middle photo is
another sent by the same finder of a different rock found in the
same "strewn
field." Meteorwrong
111 is yet another one. (Sorry - this fellow took really good
photos and it would be a shame not to use them.)
The bottom photo is one I stole from a website that
poses the hypothesis and presents some arguments that the rock and
others found with it are meteorites from Venus. (I
increased the contrast a bit from the original.) I include it here
because of the interesting similarity (!).
Here's my suggestion. Have some good petrographic thin sections
made of several samples - sections that include the alleged fusion
crust. Have the sections examined by a good petrologist. Fusion
crusts on stony meteorites consist of glass. Glass is easy to identify
in
thin section. If this "crust" is not glass, then these attractive
rocks are not meteorites.
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