BRENHAM PALLASITE Meteorite Palladium Silver Coin 5$ Cook Islands 2007
These attractive coins from Cook Islands commemorates the very rare meteorite, a Pallasite, whose fall was recorded in the year 1886. This Proof coin was issue in legal tender in 2007, it is partially Palladium plated and features a real small component of this famous Brenham Meteorite inlaid in the coin. Eliza Kimberly found a strange black chunk of stone in the Brenham Fields in Kiowa, Kansas. She identified it as a meteorite straight away but could only let it be specified more precisely by a scientist several years later. It was a very rare meteorite a pallasite. A pallasite is a stony-iron meteorite type.
It was named after the German academic Peter Simon Pallas who first described this rare group of meteorites in the years 17721777. They are considered to be very beautiful and consist of about 50 percent iron-nickel and another 50 percent olivine. A small component of this famous Brenham Meteorite, which originated billions of years ago, has been set in this coin. To emphasise the particularity of this issue furthermore, the surface of this coin has selectively been treated with palladium.
The untreated surfaces on the moon and the meteorites tail are a strong contrast to the remaining coin and give it a very special visual effect. The coin reverse depicts the Raphael Maklouf effigy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Meteorites are rocks that have fallen to Earth from space. They are the remains of long-dead planets and asteroids; many or most are believed to originate in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Pallasites are an extremely rare class, accounting for only about 1% of all known meteorites.
Pallasites are packed with beautiful translucent crystals of olivine (the semi-precious gemstone peridot) suspended in a nickel-iron matrix, very much like the bits of fruit in a slice of fruitcake, and are thought to have formed at the core/mantle boundary of an ancient celestial body. When sliced and polished, pallasites are among the most beautiful of meteorites.
The color of the olivine crystals can vary from a deep amber to light green depending on the particular meteorite being viewed. In thin slices of pallasites, the crystals are translucent to light. Unfortunately, thin slicing is a poor method of preparing pallasites as the crystals have little metal to hold them in the matrix. Pallasites are very scarce and believed to have formed on differentiated bodies in the transition area between the metal-rich core and the olivine-rich mantle where the olivine could cool slowly enough to form relatively large crystals. The Brenham pallasite is a representative and relatively available example of this class. The item "BRENHAM PALLASITE Meteorite Palladium Silver Coin 5$ Cook Islands 2007" is in sale since Wednesday, March 15, 2017. This item is in the category "Coins & Paper Money\Coins\ World\Australia & Oceania\South Pacific". The seller is "powercoin_italy" and is located in Roma. This item can be shipped worldwide.
- Circulated/Uncirculated: Uncirculated
- Year: 2007
- Composition: Silver
- Country/Region of Manufacture: Cook Islands