[meteorite-list] Sahara 85001

From: MARSROX_at_aol.com <MARSROX_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:04:50 2004
Message-ID: <9f.277656d4.2a1aaf29_at_aol.com>

Hi Christian:

Sahara 85001 had something of an interesting history. I purchased a slice
from Blaine with the "Sahara 85001" name a couple of years ago. When I was
typing out a label, it dawned on me that the Labenne Sahara "series" started
with "97." So what was this "85" about. Then I found that it wasn't in the
MetBull or the Cat of Mets.

Personally, I don't like these "candidate" meteorites in my collection, and
this one is very worthy so I pursued it's origins.

It was obtained by Blaine from Al Lang who told me that "oil workers in
Libya" had found maybe 80 lbs. (or was it kilos?) but only "got out" about 7
kgs. He had sent some off the year before to a researcher at a famous
Ivy-wall eastern-establishment-of-higher-education for classification and had
heard anything back. He gave me the individuals name.

I tracked him down and he responded to my email telling me that he WASN'T
working on the rock. This info was relayed to Al.

In my opinion, this weird mesosiderite needed some serious pedigree
attention. I believe that Hall-of-Fame researcher Ted Bunch was the one that
took this on. Since there wasn't much material left to sample, I'm not sure
from where he got his work specimen. Nonetheless, the work was accomplished.

Hence we have NWA 1242, S1, W=0, found 1985, Gillio, Libya, TKW - 7 kg.

A unique MES, this one has metal inclusions up to 10mm (my slice has one of
these!), and....... olivine inclusions.

I wonder if this is some transition mes between MES and PAL........

It's a keeper.

But here's a challenge. What are the lat and long of Gillio? The place ain't
listed in MY Rand-McNally!

Kevin Kichinka
Received on Mon 20 May 2002 03:57:29 PM PDT