![]() These buyers believe that extraterrestrial gem materials have special properties that are helpful in promoting healing and wellness. They are some of the most active buyers of moldavite, tektites, and desert glass. The largest demand for extraterrestrial gem materials comes from people who are interested in using them in alternative and complementary medicine. Smaller and lower quality items fall into the novelty gem and collectibles markets. The best gem-quality materials generally go to a small number of designer jewelers who use them to create one-of-a-kind pieces. The highest quality "as found" specimens are of greatest interest to scientists, meteorite collectors, and mineral collectors. In addition, the supply of these materials is so small, so fragmented, and so unreliable that they do not have a place with wholesale or mass-market jewelers. Why are they so inexpensive? Most people are not familiar with them, so they are not being requested in jewelry stores. Who Buys Extraterrestrial Gems?Įven though these materials are extremely rare, they can typically be purchased at a lower price than some of the most popular gemstones. Because of these fractures, it can be difficult to find pieces of extraterrestrial olivine that are large enough to facet - but many faceted stones have been produced! Photograph by Doug Bowman, used here under a Creative Commons license. The stresses placed on a meteorite during its formation, its travel through space, entry into Earth's atmosphere, and impact with Earth's surface all have a chance of fracturing the olivine crystals. The pallasite material comes from a portion of that body near the core-mantle boundary. This composition suggests that it was once part of a planet or other large body of our solar system that had a metallic core and a rocky mantle. It consists of yellowish green olivine crystals, some of which are gem-quality peridot, in a matrix of meteoritic iron. ![]() This meteorite was found by a farmer working his field, and when unearthed, it weighed about 1500 pounds. Pallasite Meteorite Slice: This is a photo of a thin slice cut from the Esquel pallasite meteorite that fell near Chubut, Argentina.
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