WGS received a special behind-the-scenes tour of the Field Museum of Chicago's meteorite collection, fluorescent minerals, and we explored the museum's meteorite display, mineral display, and the hall of gems. A special thanks to Jim Holstein for his knowledge of meteorites and his hospitality.
Diamonds are Forever. The white powder in this vial contains quadrillions of tiny diamonds "STARDUST" extracted from the Allende meteorite. These interstellar diamonds were part of the early development of our solar system
This is a sample of the Allende meteorite which fell from the sky 2/8/1969 and landed in Mexico. The huge fireball lit up thousands of square miles of Northern Mexico and Southwestern United States. The fireball travelled from south to north. A meteorite shower spread over 50 square kilometers area. There are several pits; the biggest one is 60 cm across and 15 cm deep. Search and preliminary investigation of the meteorites were carried out by Dr. E. King (NASA), Drs. B. Mason and R. Clarke (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, USA) and others.
This meteorite named Northwest Africa 8607 was once a Moon rock. Meteorites come from one of three sources, the asteroid belt, Mars, or the Moon.
This chunk of 471 million year old Ordovician limestone from Sweden contains an ultra-rare fossil meteorite. This meteorite was once an asteroid that was shattered 470 million years ago and remnants of this space explosion still rain down on Earth from time to time.
Found in 1882 in Brenham Kansas, this meteorite is a Pallasite, meaning it is a mixture of metal and silicates (usually olivine grains)
Here is our intrepid group.
This is a small sample of the Elbogen meteorite. the "Bewitched Burgrave" Over the years many legends about the Elbogen meteorite have arisen. Some of them date back to the years 1350–1430, when Loket castle used to be the seat of the burgrave. It is said that one of them, perhaps Puta von Illburk, was cursed by an old woman, struck by lightning and transformed into this hard piece of iron.
We also got to see some highly fluorescent minerals.
More behind the scenes meteorites.
Here are more meteorites from the Field Museum's Exhibits.
The Hall of Gems and Rocks and Minerals
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