Terrestrial Native Iron in basalt (polished, TL)

Help improve this record

No owner is registered for this specimen yet. If it's yours or you know more about it, you can add the owner, provenance, publications and other details.

Here is a true mineral oddity although it looks unassuming at first glance with its expertly polished, gray-brown surface, and an overall appearance as a stream cobble. Close inspection, however, reveals numerous bronzy specks of Native Iron to 1 mm in size within the basalt matrix. Native Iron is extremely rare in terrestrial igneous rocks even though it forms the majority of the earth's core. Iron meteorites, and Iron within meteorites exist, but those are extraterrestrial and not formed from the earth. Terrestrial Native Iron is very rare indeed! This old-timer is a large piece from remote Disko Island, Greenland. Many were recovered and brought back to Europe around the early 1900s in museum scientific expeditions, but most surviving examples are merely slices of the material. They have been passed down through collections ever since, and this is not modern material. It is quite rich and large for a specimen of this material. This occurrence is the largest, richest and now the only deposit on earth since the small deposits in Siberia and at Kassel, Germany were mined out long ago. This is a large, highly important example of an admittedly esoteric mineral item that represents one of the most rarely seen pure elements we can obtain. It is complete, although it could of course be sliced into many slices - and perhaps more valuable if sold bit by bit (which we will not do). Alfredo Petrov collection.