Muonionalusta Meteorite // Slice + Triolite

This particular Muonionalusta slice has exposed the triolite crystal with a quarter inch donut hole of Muonionalusta meteorite coming through. A formation such as this is an extremely rare find. Triolite is not only a rare crystal formation in this particular meteorite, but the Muonionalusta in the center makes it even rarer.

Muonionalusta is a meteorite classified as fine octahedrite, which impacted in northern Scandinavia—  west of the border between Sweden and Finland— about one million years BCE. The first Muonionalusta was found in 1906.

The Muonionalusta is probably the oldest known meteorite roughly 4.5 billion years old. It is part of the iron core or mantle of a planetoid, which shattered into many pieces upon its fall to our planet. On Earth, the meteorite has experienced four ice ages. It is mainly comprised form a combination of Nickel and Iron and has a very distinct pattern of etching know as the Widmanstätten pattern, thus making this a very interesting specimen and an item of interest among many collectors.