Two children were kicking rocks around one day in 1906, when suddenly one kicked out a very rusty, heavy rock, which seemed so strange and out of place that they took it home. The Muonionalusta area is in northern Sweden north of the Arctic Circle. Scientists did not study this rock until 1948 when it was discovered to be a piece of an iron meteorite. Since then, numerous pieces of the now famous Muonionalusta Meteorite have been found. These meteorites are famous for their fantastic etched patterns (Widmanstatten figures). These patterns are not visible until the meteorites are acid etched.

I first discovered slabs of these meteorites at the Tucson Gem & Mineral Shows in 2008. I had an inspiration that I could make jewelry out of these slabs. I showed Debbie this material and being the adventurous type, she wanted a pendant and ear rings from this material.

It actually took me a few months to think about how I could work with this material. Fortunately my neighbor, Mike, is a tool and die maker, and has a fantastic machine shop. I had Mike cut two rectangular cabs as well as four smaller rectangular cabs for earrings. For the earrings I had him halve the almost quarter inch slab in order to lighten these small cabs so they were suitable (light enough) for earrings. Muonionalusta’s often have small stone inclusions, and metal saws do not like rocks! I watched Mike’s expensive wire-feed saw spark its way through the meteorite, but every time it hit an inclusion it would stop and shut itself down. Then the saw would have to be backed out and start all over down the same cut line. Usually the second cut would make it through the inclusion and continue until the cut was done or it hit another inclusion and shut itself down again, in which case the cut would have to be restarted. This was a very expensive computer-controlled machine, so I owed Mike Christmas jewelry for his two daughters and his wife. Nice that he is a good neighbor and likes to barter.

I rounded the corners of these rectangles on my Genie, then coated the iron with epoxy to make them shiny and seal them against rust. I drilled a small hole in the corner of each earring cab.

I wrapped the pendant cab with Argentium and added two violet CZ’s and a Mystic Topaz to one side. I thought they reminded me of stars and they definitely gave the pendant sparkle. I hung the unit at an angle to simulate the meteor tumbling into the atmosphere. The silver wire was the obvious choice, matching the silvery patina of the meteorite.

This jewelry set is one of my favorites and I’ve never seen anything like this before.

Believe me, Debbie loves this set and I see her wearing it often. It is one of the newer additions to the “Debbie Collection”. I’m going to make at least one more similar set in the near future and post it up on this website.