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RE: Bolide size vs. recovered stones

>George (Geozay) mentioned a post in which he felt a -15 bolide produced
>a meteorite.  This makes me wonder if we REALLY have a good idea of just
>how large a bolide produces a recoverable meteorite.  

Well, there is a number of factors that would determine this, including
the initial size of the meteor, its speed and angle, and its composition
(stony vs iron).

>Recent experience
>(El Paso and Greenland) shows us that fairly spectacular bolides are
>apparently not that likely to produce recoverable stones, or perhaps if
>they do only a small quantity.  

True.  If the meteorite lands in the ocean, or in heavy vegetation or in
an area with many dark rocks, it will be next to impossible to recover.
It is also possible there was no meteorite to recover, as it may
have burned up totally in the atmosphere.

>The Peekskill bolide, which was quite
>spectacular, as the videotape record attests, resulted also in a fairly
>modest football size chunk being recovered, although there may be
>smaller masses that fragmented and were never found.  

The video shows that the Peekskill meteorite broke up into at least
16 pieces. Only one fragment was recovered, and only because it made itself
very obvious by striking a car.

>If I understand
>correctly, most of the well documented/witnessed bolides have resulted
>in stony metoerites (Peekskill, Pasamonte, etc).  

Stony meteorites in fact make up the bulk of witnessed falls, so this
is not so unusual.

>Could an iron
>meteorite display a less spectacular bolide and still reach the earth
>(ie something like George's -15 bolide)?

The answer is yes, but witnessing a iron meteorite fall is actually 
a rare event.  

>It makes one wonder what it would have been like to see one of the truly
>great bolides such as for Gibeon, Hoba, Odessa, etc.

It would be a very spectacular sight.  We're talking about several tons of 
material with these examples.

Ron Baalke