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

A resplendent coarse Widmanstätten pattern is displayed in the three dimensions of this cube. The patterns seen result from the very slow intergrowth of two iron-nickel minerals (kamacite and taenite) deep within the parent asteroid.

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 and some are olivine poor; some specimens have no olivine whatsoever. This is a fine example of the latter variety which originates from near the core/mantle boundary of an asteroid that broke apart in early solar system history.

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.
45 x 45 x 45 mm
715g.

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