A LARGE ADMIRE METEORITE NUGGET, Pallasite — PMG Lyon County, Kansas

Evocative of an exotic fruit, this meteorite exhibits green-to-caramel aggregates of olivine crystals suspended in natural coils and tendrils of its durable iron-nickel matrix. Pallasites represent less than 0.2% of all known meteorites, and this is both a decorative and intriguing example of a complete meteorite.
118 x 93 x 87 mm. (4⅔ x 3⅔ x 3½ in.) and 1,417 g. (3 lbs)

The Admire pallasite formed at the mantle-core boundary of an asteroid about 4.5 billion years ago. Deep inside the asteroid, molten metal from the outer core mixed with chunks of the olivine mantle that had crystallized. Things remained quiet for Admire until a major collision shattered the asteroid roughly 100 million years ago; this event and subsequent, less energetic collisions set the Admire pallasite material on a collision course with Earth. The first piece of Admire to be found was ploughed up in Lyon County, Kansas in 1881. The specimen offered here was more recently recovered along with the big mass from which the large slice (see lot 8) was derived.

Christie's would like to thank Dr. Alan E. Rubin at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles for his assistance in preparing this catalog note.