MUONIONALUSTA INFORMATION

The Muonionalusta meteorite is found in Norrbotten, Kiruna Sweden. These meteorites are found buried very deep at times, they have been found deeper than 5 feet, which is very deep for a meteorite to be found. They are found using deep seeking Pulse induction metal detectors, like the Pulse star 2 or the Lorenz. These machines come with coils up to 80 inches, so they are very deep seeking. The Muonionalusta has been in the ground a long time and shows signs of weathering from the outside in. The etch is a fine octahedrite just like Gibeon. But if you look at a slice of Muonionalusta around the natural edge, you will see dark material moving into the etch from the outside edge. If you look at a Gibeon slice in the same area it will be bright shiny metal all the way to very outside edge.
The Muonionalusta Meteorite is very hard to cut, it is very hard and wears out band saw blades very quickly. It costs more in blades to cut than a lot of softer meteorites, it also takes a long time to make a slice. So even thought the meteorite is less expensive per gram to buy. The cutting process is very expensive in blades and time. Another point about this meteorite is that it mostly comes as large round pieces. A smaller piece is about 10 kilos and many of them are over 50 kilos. So they are not very desirable to sit in a collection as a whole specimen.
The etch is said to be even better than Gibeon by many people and as you can see it is a very nice etch.