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Re: African falls
I refer to the African falls as "vaguely witnessed" for three reasons:
-No names were reported to me of people who saw them fall or
recovered them.
-As far as I can tell, the fireballs were not widely observed.
-Recovery was not made right away... days passed before
anything was found (a fact that often casts doubt on supposed
links between fireballs and stones).
If any of these reasons are racist, I'm truely sorry.
Neither meteorite appears in the Meteoritical Bulletin web page yet.
I am, as should be apparent, just gathering information to submit to
the Nomenclature Committee for votes on the new names.
-jeff
=======================================================================
At 12:53 PM 12/8/97 -0800, Michael Blood wrote:
>Dear Jeff,
> They seem plenty different to me.
> (I hope your comment about their having been witnessed falls in NE
>Africa is not as racist as it sounds. "Vaguely?")
> Hamada du Draa fell in January & El Hammami in August.
> A friend of mine packed El Hammami out of the El Hammami Mountain range
>on cammels. I can't vouch for Hamada Du Draa, but my impression is it is
>at least several hundreds of miles removed - but even if it is only a
>hundred, in that part of the world, a hundred miles is a very long way.
> The El Hammami I have looks PERFECTLY freash - the Hamada du Draa looks
>slightly weathered, and they have differences in appearance of their
>matrix in general.
>Jeff Grossman wrote:
>>
>> If anybody has pieces of, or has seen, both Hamada du Draa
>> (a.k.a. Mhamid) and El Hammami, I'd like your input on this:
>> could they be the same meteorite? These share many characteristics in
the reports I have on them:
>>
>> 1) Both are vaguely "witnessed" falls in NE Africa (Algeria, 1995, and
Mauritania, 1997, respectively). Both were collected by locals
>> (nomads) a few days after they fell..
>>
>> 2) Both are H5 chondrites, shock stage S2. Olivine comp is similar..
>> They were analyzed by UCLA and Munster (Rubin and Weber)..
>>
>> 3) Both have fine metal veining..
>>
>> 4) Both are huge (over 200 kg)..
>>
>> What do you dealers and collectors think?
>>
>> -Jeff
>
>
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