History:

The Pallas Iron and E. F. Chladni

A change in paradigms was on its way in the last decades of the 18th century. In 1772, during one of his travels through the remote areas of Siberia on behalf of czarina Catharina, the renowned German naturalist Peter Pallas examined a huge iron mass near the town of Krasnojarsk - a mass that the Tartars said it had fallen from the sky. The 700kg iron caught the scientist's attention - it was partly covered with a black crust, and there were many translucent olivine crystals (peridots) set in its iron matrix, something Pallas had never seen nor heard about. Unwittingly, he had discovered a new type of meteorite, a class of stony-iron meteorites that would later be named for him: the pallasites.

Pallas' subsequent report encouraged a German physicist, Ernst Florens Chladni, to publish his audacious thesis that this and other finds actually represent genuine rocks from space. In his booklet, "On the Origin of the Pallas Iron and Other Similar to it, and on Some Associated Natural Phenomena", published in 1794, he compiled all available data on several meteorite finds and falls. From this, he was forced to conclude that meteorites were actually responsible for the phenomena known as fireballs, and, more importantly, that they must have their origins in outer space. His view received immediate resistance and mockery by the scientific community. In the late 1790s, rocks from space just didn't fit into the concept of nature. However, nature itself came to Chladni's aid in the form of two witnessed meteorite falls, making him the father of a brand-new discipline - the science of meteoritics.

From Catalogue of Meteorites, Fifth ed. 2000

Krasnojarsk,
Yeniseisk, Krasnojarsk Territory, Russia
Find 1749
Stony Iron, Pallasite ( PAL)
Approx recovered weight: 700 kg.

A mass estimated about 700 kg was discovered in 1749 about 145 miles south of Krasnojarsk, between the Ubei and Sissim rivers; it was seen by P.S. Pallas in 1772 and was trasported to Krasnojarsk, P.S. Pallas 1776; A. Göbel (1867). Mentionned , G Thomson (1808). thomson studied the etching of the iron with nitric acid and was the first to developp the etch figures commonly called Widmanstätten figures. The fragment mentionned under the name Malyi Altai, P. Dravert (1930); I.S. Astrapowitsch (1938) is piece of the Krasnojarsk ( ref of 1959). Coordinates, A.I. Eremeeva (1980). Texture, references, olivines Fa12.2 E.R.D. Scott (1977). Analysis of metal, 8.9% Ni, 22 ppm Ga, 56 ppm Ge, 0.18 ppm Ir, J.T. Wasson & S.P. Sedwick (1969). Re-Os isotopic data; Re-Os age of iron meteorites approx 4.30 Ga, T. Hirata & A. Masuda (1992); Noble gas data compilation, L. Schultz & H. Kruse (1989);L. Schultz pers. commun. (1998). Oxygen isotopic composition, R.N. Clayton & T.K. Mayeda (1978), 1996).

Distribution: 515 kg Acad Sciences Moscow; 2.6 kg Univ., Copenhagen;4kg Vienna; 2.0 kg MtN, Berlin; etc..

Synonyms:
Berg Emir (In NHM Cat)
Emir (In NHM Cat)
Kemis (In NHM Cat)
Kemiz (In NHM Cat)
Krasnoiarsk (In NHM Cat)
Krasnoyarsk (In NHM Cat)
Malyi Altai (In NHM Cat)
Malyi Altaj (In NHM Cat)
Medvedeva (In NHM Cat)
Medwedewa (In NHM Cat)
Mount Kemis (In NHM Cat)
Pallace Iron (In NHM Cat)
Pallas Iron (In NHM Cat)

Meteoritical Bulletin, no. 13, Moscow (1959)

© Caillou Noir / Michel FRANCO 2006