Shirokovsky Russian Pseudo Pallasite Meteorite Slice - 17.25g

Shirokovsky!  This is a very unique one with a strange story behind it.

Shirokovsky is a 100% man-made "meteor-wrong."  Back in 2002 or 2003,  Shirokovsky was brought to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, here in Arizona.  This is the largest show in the world.  Several meteorite dealers and collectors rushed to acquire some of this new and unusual looking pallasite and began to get it classified.  The story provided by the "anonymous" finders goes as follows:

"At 03:30 UT on 1956 Feb 1, a fireball shining brighter than the sun and leaving a smoke trail was observed by numerous eyewitnesses in an area of about 500 km across Russia. The fireball disappeared in 5-6 seconds, but the trail was visible for an hour. Windows in nearby villages were broken by the shock wave. A meteorite reportedly fell on the frozen Shirokovsky reservoir . . ., situated on the Kosva River near Shirokovsky village and the cities of Ugle-Uralsk and Kizel, Produing a 42-cm diameter hold in 80 cm thick ice. Magnetic particles enriched in Ni were extracted from ice surrounding the hole. Several attempts by divers to recover the meteorite on the bottom were not successful. In early 2002, anonymous searchers found many fragments, totaling ~150kg, of iron-rich material at the site.”

The story made sense, at first.  It was possible that someone could find a meteorite 44 years after it fell.  Shirokovsky did make its way into the Met Bull.  Shortly after that, scientists realized that something was off about this meteorite, and they took a second look.  They found that the Shirovsky olivine weren't equilibrated with the matrix melt.  The olivine was noticeably different from any other olivine that fell from outer space because of such a high nickel content.  The trace elements of Shirovsky platinum/iridium ratio were much higher than cosmic rocks and similar to that of terrestrial copper-nickel ore deposits.  After realizing that it was not a meteorite, it was left in the Met Bull but changed to "Pseudometeorite."  

It appears that the anonymous finders took a story that really happened and decided to create a meteorite to match it.  If you do some digging on the web, you can still find some old articles about the fake find.  They even have pictures showing the hole in the ice and people holding the stone that they "discovered."

To this day, Shirokovsky is the only known meteor-wrong to fool scientists long enough to get published in the Met Bull.  It's still highly collectable due to the history and many educators use it to show the difference between a fake pallasite and a real one. 

This piece has been cut and polished on one side.  It comes with a COA as well as an information card.

Total weight is 17.25 grams.

The measurements are 55x42x3mm.