Meteorites containing nickel

It will be observed that all of the meteorites contain, in addition to nickel, a small quantity of cobalt, whilst the carbon content is extremely small. Carbon is sometimes present in meteoric iron in the form of minute diamonds.2 The Rowton specimen is interesting as being the first sidente observed to fall in Great Britain, and may be seen in the Natural History Museum, South Kensington. The Perryville siderite is the first recorded instance of the presence of ruthenium in meteoric iron. In addition to traces of this element, traces of iridium, palladium, and platinum were detected. 

Not only is Wohler known for making the first organic chemical outside of a living cell, he also discovered the elements beryllium (independently discovered by Antoine Bussy), silicon, aluminum, yttrium, and titanium. In case that wasn t enough to cement his position in the annals of chemistry, he also discovered that meteorites contained organic compounds and developed a process to purify nickel. 

Nickel is found as a constitutent in most meteorites and often serves as one of the criteria for distinguishing a meteorite from other minerals. Iron meteorites, or siderites, may contain iron alloyed with from 5 percent to nearly 20 percent nickel. Nickel is obtained commercially from pentlandite and pyrrhotite of the Sudbury region of Ontario, a district that produces about 30 percent of the world s supply of nicke. 

People have sometimes been able to avoid the tedious business of extracting iron from its natural ore. When Commander Peary was exploring Greenland in 1894 he was taken by an Eskimo to a place near Cape York to see a huge, half-buried meteorite. This had provided metal for Eskimo tools and weapons for over a hundred years. Meteorites usually contain iron plus about 10% nickel a direct delivery of low-alloy iron from the heavens. 

Nickel is also found in meteorites and on the ocean floor in lumps of minerals known as sea floor nodules. The earth s core contains large amounts of nickel. Nickel is released into the atmosphere during nickel mining and by industries that make alloys or nickel compounds or industries that use nickel and its compounds. These industries may also discharge nickel in waste water. Nickel is also released into the atmosphere by oil-burning power plants, coalburning power plants, and trash incinerators. 

Early human civilizations used stone, bone, and wood for objects. Approximately ten thousand years ago, metals first appeared. The first metals used were those found in their native form, or in a pure, uncombined state. Most metals today are acquired from an ore containing the metal in combination with other elements such as oxygen. The existence of native metals is rare, and only a few metals exist in native form. Iron and nickel were available in limited supply from meteorites. The first metals utilized widely by humans were copper, silver, and gold. Pure nuggets of these metals were pounded, in a process known as cold hammering, with stones into various shapes used for weapons, jewelry, art, and various domestic implements. Eventually, smiths discovered if a metal was heated it could be shaped more easily. The heating process is known as annealing. Because the supply of native metals was limited, metal items symbolized wealth and status for those who possessed them. 

The amoeboid descriptor for amoeboid olivine aggregates refers to their irregular shapes. AOAs tend to be fine-grained and porous, and have comparable sizes to CAIs in the same meteorite. They consist mostly of forsterite and lesser amounts of iron-nickel metal, with a refractory component composed of anorthite, spinel, aluminum-rich diopside, and rarely melilite. The refractory component is sometimes recognizable as a CAI embedded within the AOA. The AOAs show no evidence of having been melted, but some contain CAIs that have melted. 

The stony-iron meteorites are intermediate between chondrites and irons. These very rare meteorites are equal mixtures of iron/nickel alloys and silicate minerals. Pallasites are striking examples of this type of meteorites, consisting of green olivine crystals in a matrix of metallic iron. Another type of stony-iron meteorite, called mesosiderites, contain pyroxene and plagioclase feldspars, minerals that are common on Earth. 

As has already been mentioned, iron seldom occurs in the free state in nature on account of the readiness with which it oxidises on exposure to a moist atmosphere. Native iron is frequently of meteoric origin,2 and contains varying quantities of alloyed nickel.3 Usually the nickel ranges from 1 to 10 per cent., but the metallic particles contained in the meteorite which fell near Middlesbrough in 1881 possessed no less than 21-32 per cent, of nickel,4 whilst the Santa Catharina siderite5 contained 34 per cent., and Oktibbeha County siderite 60 per cent, of... 

Nickel occurs, with iron, in meteorites. Its principal ores are nickelite, NiAs, millerite, NiS, and pentlandite, (Ni,Fe)S. The metal is produced, as an alloy containing iron and other elements, by roasting the ore and reducing with carbon. In the purification of nickel by the Mond process the gaseous compound nickel carbonyl, Ni(CO)4, is man ufactured and then decomposed. 

The six most abundant, nonvolatile rock-forming elements in the Sun are Si (100), Mg (104), Fe (86), S (43), Al (8.4), and Ca (6.2). The numbers in parentheses are atoms relative to 100 Si atoms. They are derived from element abundances in Cl-meteorites which are identical to those in the Sun except that Cl-abundances are better known (see Chapter 1.03). From geophysical measurements it is known that the Earth s core accounts for 32.5% of the mass of the Earth. Assuming that the core contains only iron, nickel, and sulfur allows us to calculate the composition of the silicate fraction of the Earth by mass balance. This is the composition of the bulk silicate earth (BSE) or the primitive earth mantle (PM). The term primitive implies the composition of the Earth s mantle before crust and after core formation. 

One argument for this belief is the presence of nickel in meteorites. Meteorites are pieces of rock or metal from space that fall to Earth s surface. Meteorites often contain a high percentage of nickel. 

Meteorites are the grains of meteoroids or meteors that survive the journey through the Earth s atmosphere and reach the surface. Some are almost pure iron-nickel alloy, whereas others contain silicates and sulphides, and yet others (the carbonaceous chondrites) contain organic compounds. 

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