Glorieta Mountain
A Fabled Meteorite now Available
Stony iron — PAL
Santa Fe County, New Mexico, USA

In a treasure hunt that has consumed him for much of his adult life, meteorite hunter Steve Schoner made dozens of trips to the rugged environs of Glorieta Mountain searching for a large pallasitic mass from the Glorieta Mountain meteorite shower. While some experts believed that such a mass didn't exist (only small pallasitic fragments had previously been found), for Mr. Schoner and most meteorite enthusiasts, the fabled main mass of the Glorieta Mountain pallasite has been an extraterrestrial Holy Grail.

Mr. Schoner had been personally encouraged to search for this treasure by Harvey Nininger, the Father of Meteoritics, and he took this encouragement to heart. There were seventy searches of two to three weeks over a period of fifteen years. And finally, Mr. Schoner's obsession paid off when he discovered the 20 kilo main mass. The largest pallasitic fragment previously known to exist weighed only 395 grams—and it fit like a jigsaw puzzle piece into the newly recovered mass. As a result of the material lost from cutting, grinding and polishing, there are only 11 kilos of finished pallasite slices and partial slices available, and half of this material will end up in museum and research institutions around the world. Several specimens are currently undergoing analysis by renowned meteoriticists, Drs. J. Wasson and Alan Rubin at UCLA's Institute of Geophysics.

Glorieta Mountain is not only a resplendent pallasite, it's chemically anomalous—it has an exceptionally high sulfide content—and is not part of the Main Group of pallasites. Glorieta Mountain pallasite is stable, in extremely limited supply, contains spectacular olivine crystals, is legendary and scientifically unusual; in short, it's among the most extraordinary examples of a pallasite known to exist.

For more information on Glorieta Mountain, see the February, 2001 (Vol 7, No. 1) cover story in Meteorite, the international quarterly of meteorites and meteorite science.

We are in the process of adding additional photographs. Please contact Darryl Pitt, Curator of the Macovich Collection, for further information.