#widmanstätten pattern

[coupleofdays]

"Widmanstätten pattern, lines that appear in some iron meteorites when a cross section of the meteorite is etched with weak acid. The pattern is named for Alois von Widmanstätten, a Viennese scientist who discovered it in 1808."

--- Encyclopedia Britannica

[mostly-history]

An iron bead (3600 – 3350 BC), found at the Gerzeh cemetery, about 70km south of Cairo (Egypt).

Analysis of the bead shows that it (and others found with it) was made from a meteorite, due to its high nickel content.  The bead has a Widmanstätten crystal structure, which is found only in meteorites that cooled extremely slowly inside asteroids while our solar system was forming.

[earthstory]

Polished, acid-etched sphere of an iron-nickel meteorite. The pattern of intergrown crystals is called a Widmanstätten pattern. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it in a sphere before - looks like some of the crystals actually go from side to side and basically create circles on this surface!

[ovypozytor]

[amoveableheadfeast]

Widmanstätten pattern

[mucholderthen]

METEORITES: DIGITAL and NICKEL-IRON Transparent   [done for a deviantArt "meteorite challenge"] Weeping Surface Painted Echo

Fractal art by Hal Tenny  [also at Fine Art America] Made with Apophysis and Chaotica; rendered in Chaotica ________________________________________

BOTTOM IMAGE:   Surface of an etched meteorite showing the Widmanstätten pattern: an interleaving of long nickel-iron crystals of kamacite and taenite bands or ribbon   [from the meteorite cluster near Gibeon, Namibia] kevinzim / Kevin Walsh || Wikipedia

[valosalo]

Drawing by M. W. Haidinger drawing depicts the fall of the Hraschina meteorite based on eyewitness accounts. 1751

Dataisnature

[inlovewithgeosciences]

Russian Pallasite with Widmanstätten Pattern