Pallasite – Anomalous (PAL-ANOM)Sahara Desert, near the Moroccan/Algerian border

Pallasites are the most exquisite extraterrestrial materials known, and NWA 10023, a new Sahara Desert find, ranks among the very best. As previously indicated, less than 0.2 percent of all meteorites are pallasites, and of those, not many possess beautifully translucent crystals of the silicate mineral olivine — the hallmark of the best pallasites like Esquel, Imilac, Fukang, Admire and Glorieta Mountain. NWA 10023, the 10,023rd meteorite to be catalogued following its recovery from the Northwest African grid of the Sahara, does have such crystals and it’s more special still: it has been classified PAL-ANOM (anomalous), the result of its metallic matrix being comprised of an unusually high amount of plessite—and more than in any pallasite. Plessite is a fine-grained mixture of the two dominant iron-nickel alloys found in meteorites, kamacite and taenite, and it usually occurs in the gaps between large bands of these alloys. In this instance, the large bands are absent and the metallic matrix is almost entirely comprised of this plessitic “cement.” This visually arresting complete slice is the first offering of NWA 10023, a most unusual meteorite with a limited total known weight (6.95 kilograms).