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 Post subject: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2019 4:11 pm 
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How rare are gemstones that were produced by a meteorite impact event and has anyone ever seen or worked with any???


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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 11:04 am 
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Morning Ken.
I presume you are referring to impact glass, like moldavite.
Most of this material is imitation, man-made glass.
Is there a market for it?
Yes, Usually New Age types.

https://www.gemologyonline.com/moldavite.html


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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 7:33 pm 
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or peridot from pallasites, I suppose. I have seen one cut. It was not exceptional. I think they look better cabbed.


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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 4:59 pm 
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Libyan glass is nice looking too.
I once saw necklaces made of alternating beads of moldavite and libyan glass, the color association was pretty and the general idea interesting.

In another style, you have the brazilian carbonado diamond.


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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Thu Apr 18, 2019 11:30 pm 
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I've researched this subject for almost 3 years and you are right. All I could find is peridot or moldavite, which is referred to as impactite gemstones. The reason I've been researching it is because my family has a collection of stones and gemstones that appear to have been altered, modified, morphed or created during a major meteorite impact event in the distant past. We tried to get an appraisal on a couple of them and as was told that a dollar amount could not be assign to the stones because there was nothing to compare them to. There are stones that appear to be some form of altered, modified or morphed serpentine, jade or jasper.


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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 12:43 pm 
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Sidebar: The peridot found in pallasites is not the result of impact.

RE: Your family's collection.
What characteristics are you basing this hypothesis on?

It seems far more likely that the examples you describe have undergone alteration due to terrestrial, not extra-terrestrial events.
Perhaps you could upload a couple of pictures of this material and we will try to shed some light on your anomalies with processes we can explain using known petrological and/or mineralogical processes.


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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 2:11 pm 
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The first step in an appraisal would be a proper identification of the material in question. If your appraiser didn't start there I would question all subsequent statements from that source.

Serpentine, jade or jasper are common and well understood stones. What was the qualification of the source of information


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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 2:51 pm 
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Barbra Voltaire wrote:
Sidebar: The peridot found in pallasites is not the result of impact.


you are, of course, correct. Neither is the moissanite found in a meteor. In that case they are correctly referred to as associated with...


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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Sun Apr 21, 2019 3:36 pm 
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Here's a photo of one of the stones. Told it could be some form of altered jade maybe chalcedony? Can only show 5 photos at a time so I hope this shows enough to give some ideal.


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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2019 9:39 am 
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That conchoidal fracture in the last picture is suggestive of chalcedony. Overall look is of moss agate. A nice find, but not jade. Nothing about it suggests a meteorite impact. Nevertheless this looks to be nice material that would be worth having cut into cabochons.

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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:46 am 
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The stone shows no evidence of a meteorite impact to me either.


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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:57 am 
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No indication of meteorite to me also.

However, it looks like someone has already been polishing on the top piece in the first picture.


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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Thu Apr 25, 2019 1:45 am 
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For me to sit here and convince someone that this is meteoritic material, I'd have to waste your time with a lot of geology and several electronic scan results. It took me almost five years of research and several scans to get to that point. Regardless of what it is or isn't, it's for sure something cool to look at.
This little stone below has me really baffled, a Raman analysis says it's quartz but it can't be scratched with a 7 or 8 from a mohs hardness test set, if you press hard with a #9 it will scratch it.


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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Thu Apr 25, 2019 12:56 pm 
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You are preaching to the choir here. We are not a basket of rock hounding turnips.

Everyone who has replied to your original post has minimally a BSc in geology and some doctorates.

Please, "waste" our time with the "electronic scan" and "raman results" indicating these specimens are the result of extraterrestrial impact.
:D


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 Post subject: Re: Gemstones from meteorite impact
PostPosted: Thu Apr 25, 2019 4:01 pm 
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Of course all we are basing our opinions on are pictures provided by you. But as Barbara has said, we have invested much time in education and experience to form a knowledge base. I think we have been very open in our limits under the circumstances of not having the opportunity to examine the samples in our labs.


As for the new stone,

As far as I know, a properly done Raman Spectrograph is definitive. The Raman for Quartz is so constant, simple, and distinct that it is used to calibrate Raman Spectrometers. I would be very surprised to see a Raman miss a Quartz identification.

Are you questioning it just based on a scratch test?

What set of hard points are you using for this test?

Why not polish flat on it and get an RI?

Get as SG?

Examine under a polariscope.

Quartz is a pretty easy identification to verify....


Last edited by 1bwana1 on Thu Apr 25, 2019 6:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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