Pallasite – PMG; Magadan District, Russia ( 62°54’ N, 152°26’ E)

It was in the 1960s that the first masses of Seymchan were found in a streambed in a part of Siberia made infamous as the remote location of Stalin’s gulags. Identified as meteorites, they were named Seymchan for a nearby town. Unlike most pallasites, the dispersion of olivine crystals in Seymchan is extremely heterogeneous and it is therefore known as a transitional pallasite. Some specimens are olivine rich (see lot 49) and some are olivine poor; some specimens have no olivine whatsoever. This is a fine example of the latter variety which originate from the core of an asteroid which broke apart in early solar system history.

Seymchan possesses what is among the most resplendent coarse Widmanstätten patterns known, which these specimens exhibit to great effect. The patterns seen result from the very slow intergrowth of two iron-nickel minerals (kamacite and taenite) deep within the iron core of its parent asteroid. As that is the only place we know where this can occur, this pattern is diagnostic in the identification of an iron meteorite. Iron meteorites in different groups originate from different asteroids, and as a result of varying compositions and cooling rates, they have distinct patterns (see lots 10, 13 and 41).

Seymchan is among the most rust-resistant of iron-rich meteorites — in part to its moderately high concentration of iridium, the second densest element and the most corrosion-resistant metal known. Modern fashioning.

Christie's would like to thank Dr. Alan E. Rubin at the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles for his assistance in preparing this catalogue.

57mm (2.25 in) and 1.456 kg (3.25 lbs)