The oldest meteorite, the same age as the Solar system, a fragment of the planet's embryo, a unique artifact - all these epithets belong to the Seymchan meteorite. He witnessed the life of mammoths and the ice age, and his detailed study provides an opportunity to find out how the young Earth was formed.
How to find a find
The first meteorite fragment was found in the summer of 1967, during a geological route. Such expeditions are conducted to detect signs of mineral deposits in the study area. A strange shiny block weighing 272 kg was found by geologist F. Mednikov in a stream. After research in the Moscow laboratory, the fragment was attributed to the iron type of meteorites that are found everywhere on the Earth’s surface, and they forgot about this event for a while.
The history of the Seimchan meteorite is full of drama. In October of that year, geologists found another fragment weighing about 50 kg. But since these pieces consisted of iron, they did not attract the attention of scientists. However, on the black market, meteorites and such debris are very highly valued, sometimes more expensive than precious metals.
Over the years, fragments scattered throughout the area have been collected by black diggers. Subsequently, scientists found that the meteorite has a heterogeneous structure and belongs to a very rare variety - pallasites. But time was lost. The largest rare find in Russia is almost lost.
Debris of the celestial body is found in our days, especially after the "meteorite fever" that covered the local population after the fall of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. On the black market, the price for half-kilogram samples reaches 200 thousand rubles.
Where did the meteorite fall?
The meteorite is located near the urban-type settlement Seymchan, which is located about 500 km from Magadan. From the village, geologists took another 150 km by helicopter. The first fragment was found in a tributary of the Hekandya River. In the subsequent part of the meteorite was found in other tributaries of the river. Kolyma.
This is an inaccessible and sparsely populated area, taiga, an expedition to which requires special training. Since there are practically no roads here, you can often get there only by helicopter or all-terrain vehicle. Despite these difficulties, meteorite hunters removed, according to some estimates, already 30 tons of debris from the cosmic body. The total weight of the meteorite is estimated at 60 tons.
Chemical composition
Seymchan meteorite consists mainly of nickel meteorite iron. The content of these two metals in the alloy varies, and a beautiful pattern appears in the cut of the samples in the form of intersecting shiny strips, ribbons and polygonal areas. Iron-based nickel distribution and metal streaks can answer the question of how new bodies appear in space.
The meteorite is also characterized by an abnormally high iridium content. Another feature is that olivine inclusions are very unevenly distributed in the samples. Debris mined from the crash site can be either pure metal fragments or olivine in large quantities.
Unusual properties of the Seymchan meteorite
One of the large pieces of this meteorite from a private collection was sawn at a plant in Chelyabinsk. Despite the fact that the samples lay in the water of the millennium, they were only slightly covered with rust. No less interesting is the hypothesis of why the fragments are found in streams and rivers. Perhaps a meteorite fell into a glacier. As it melted, the stones gradually moved from the mountains to streams.
The meteorite material has unique properties that can be compared with high-quality, very viscous stainless steel. And when illuminating thin sections, he demonstrates the unearthly beauty of olivine of cosmic origin. All over the world there are no more than 38 such iron-stone meteorites.
Seimchan meteorite age
The age of this unusual celestial body is amazing - it is the same age as our Sun, that is, it appeared more than 4 billion years ago. Researchers believe that it may be the oldest meteorite that fell on Earth in the entire history of the existence of our planet. Perhaps this is a fragment of a new, once-born young planet in space.
This hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that such a combination of materials (stone and iron) can be found only at the boundary of the core and mantle. The structure is finally formed first as a result of strong heating, and then after prolonged cooling in space for millions of years. Such conditions on Earth cannot be recreated.
Cosmologists believe that billions of years ago, there were a large number of microplanes in space. Subsequently, they gathered in larger ones. This piece broke off from one of them, which, after traveling in outer space, entered the atmosphere of our planet and fell meteor shower in an area of about 15 km 2 . According to various estimates, this happened from 2 to 100 thousand years ago.
At the moment, scientists are trying to find out exactly which part of the universe this meteorite flew in, to accurately assess its age. It is possible that on new sections of the samples, those substances that took part in the origin of life in our solar system will be discovered.