BALAMBALA 

IIF IRON METEORITE

15.4 GRAM PART SLICE

BALAMBALA IIF IRON METEORITE 15.4 GRAM PART SLICE. FOR AS LONG AS LOCAL GOAT HERDERS COULD REMEMBER THE METAL ROCK WAS ALWAYS THERE. THE GOAT HERDERS NAMED IT DHAGAX BIR MEANING METAL STONE AND WOULD FREQUENTLY PASS IT WHILE HERDING GOATS. THEN IN JANUARY OF 2018 IT WAS IDENTIFIED BY A NOMAD PASSING THROUGH AS A IRON METEORITE. THIS CLASSIFICATION IS RARE AND STANDS WITH OTHER IIF METEORITES. THOSE OTHER IIF METEORITES INCLUDE MONANHANS , COROWA , DEL RIO , DOROFEEVKA , PURMELA , REPEEV KHUTOR. SPECIMENS OF THIS TYPE ARE NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND THEY SELDOM COME UP FOR SALE.  ISOTOPIC ANALYSIS SUGGEST THE IIF CLASS OF IRONS LIKELY REPRESENT THE MOLTEN METALLIC CENTER OF A CV3 OR CO CARBONACEOUS METEORITE PARENT BODY. BALAMBALA IS LOADED WITH CARBON AND HAS THE ETCH TO PROVE IT. THE ETCH IS UNIQUE AND INCREDIBLY SOPHISTICATED. THE ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION OF THE WIDMANSTATTEN CAN BE TAKEN AS FRESHLY FALLEN POWDERY SNOW. TINY LITTLE KAMACITE CRYSTAL SPINDLES ENCASED WITH SCHREIBERSITE MIX WITH HIGH LEVELS OF GERMANIUM, GALLIUM, CARBON AND TAENITE RICH NICKLE. BALAMBALA IS CLOSELY RELATED TO EAGLE STATION PALLASITE DUE TO ITS CHEMICAL COMPOSITION. BALAMBALA IS VERY FRESH WITH HARDLY ANY WEATHERING AND IS NOT A RUSTER, THE COMPOSITION REPRESENTS THE HIGHEST GRADE CARBON RICH METEORIC IRON AVAILABLE.

THIS SLICE IS POLISHED TO A MIRROR FINISH ON TWO SIDES.

OFFICIAL CLASSIFICATION DATA SOURCE:
The Meteoritical Society

International Society for Meteoritics and Planetary Science

Lunar and Planetary Institute

Meteoritical Bulletin Database

Balambala        0°3.555’N, 39°6.45’E

North-Eastern, Kenya

Find: 2018 Jan

Classification: Iron meteorite (IIF)

History: Dhagax Bir is the name attributed to the meteorite by the region’s goat herders; the name means metal stone in the local spoken Somali dialect. According to the local residents the meteorite was in this location for as long as anyone could remember, including a woman 60 years of age who regularly herded goats past this stone since she was 10 years old. In January 2018, a nomad identified the stone as an iron meteorite, and then brought it to a local broker in the nearest city of Garissa. The broker began circulating photos and it was subsequently purchased by Mahamed Nur Ogle and John Higgins.

Physical characteristics: The single, approximately shield-shaped mass is about 33 × 41 cm in width and 10-15 cm thick. It is covered in large (~5 cm-wide) regmaglypts; a few cm-sized spherical holes are also present on one side. Some rust is present on the top surface, but otherwise, there is little evidence of oxidation.

Petrography: (C. Herd and L. Tunney, UAb) Optical investigation of a 4.5 × 6 cm polished and etched end slice reveals cm-scale rounded troilite inclusions, and lath-like (~1 × 8 mm) schreibersite inclusions, both swathed in kamacite. The bulk of the meteorite consists of kamacite spindles in a matrix of taenite. The spindles occur evenly throughout, except for adjacent to inclusions, where ~500 μm-wide spindle-poor regions are surrounded by ~200 μm-wide spindle-rich rings that broadly parallel the outlines of the inclusions. SEM investigation reveals that larger kamacite spindles or groupings of spindles are often cored by 50-100 μm subequant schreibersite crystals. The average kamacite bandwidth is 53±17 μm (n=36). Taenite is zoned to higher Ni adjacent to kamacite spindles. No alteration was observed.

Geochemistry: (C. Herd, L. Tunney, and G. Chen, UAb) ICP-MS data, using sample of North Chile (Filomena) as standard: Ni = 13.0, Co = 0.67 (both wt%); Ir = 5.2, Ge = 223, Ga = 8.1, As = 20.6, W = 0.76, Re = 0.45, Pt = 14.9, Cu = 208, Au = 2.6 (all µg/g).

Classification: Iron, IIF, based on the high Ge/Ga ratio, high Co content, and fit with regression parameters established by Kracher et al. (1980).

Specimens: Type specimen of 261 g at UAb. Main mass with Mahamed Nur Ogle and J. Higgins.