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Met Name

Met Type

Thin Sections

6.093 grams. 29 x 34 x 2 mm.   LL3.00

TKW 373 grams total for 16 pieces. Fall not observed. Reportedly found in 2012 by nomads in Mali.

Currently there are only 7 meteorites with this classification.


 

Darryl writes:

This complete slice of NWA 12692 is featured at no reserve in Christie’s Deep Impact Meteorite Auction.

What constitutes “rare” in meteoritedom is something I’ve often considered. While preparing one of the earliest natural history auctions in the 90s, I came to realize every known meteorite on Earth collectively weigh less than the world’s annual output of gold. I’ve used that rather compelling statistic of “rare" quite a bit ever since. More recently, I realized every lunar meteorite documented could fit in a large SUV, and while that’s another eye-widening assessment of what constitutes “rare”, we can go further

Meteorites belonging to the 3.00 subtype which exhibit no chemical alteration whatsoever from heat or pressure — and are among the holy grails in meteoritics — are exceedingly uncommon. The large handful of meteorites of such unmetamorphosed perfection occupy a class of rarity that makes the aforementioned examples seem commonplace. There are only seven pounds — only sette, siete, sept, sieben, 七, 7 pounds — of what is the most primordial planetary material documented — of which NWA 12692 is part.

The total mass of NWA 12692 is only 373 grams and this is an archetypal complete slice.

Ending March 28th, here is the index to the entire Christie’s auction.

  Click to view larger photos     #1     #2     #3     #4     #5

View the full auction catalog here