Why this rock
is probably not a meteorite:
This one also has a good story. It was found in the desert of Oman,
a place where thousands of meteorites have been found.
When I showed thius to a geologist colleague, he said "that's a
ventifact." A ventifact is a rock that's been sculpted by sand-carried
by wind. Even a meteorite could be a ventifact, and some
from Oman appear to have been so sculpted (see photo of Dhofar
465).
This thing is dense; the specific gravity is
4.6, to high for any
stony meteorite and too low for an iron meteorite. It's just slightly
magnetic and leaves a gray streak
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What is it?
We don't know yet, but it must be an aggregate of some oxide or sulfide
mineral, but not magnetite.
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