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Elbert King and the Wimberley Meteorite (IIIB)

(Sky & Telescope, September 1978, p. 208): To the Editor:

Last May one of my astronomy students, Troy Smith, told me of an
intriguing metallic-looking rock he had stumbled across five years
earlier while hiking near San Marcos, Texas. Though it seemed too deeply
imbedded to remove, he had broken off a fragment along a natural
fracture line. Geology professor Elbert King of the University of
Houston confirmed that it was meteoritic, and had joined Smith in an
unsuccessful search for the main body in 1976.
On June lst, Smith and I were joined by five others from Texas
planetariums in a new search. Driving to a ranch near Wimberley, Smith
found a mile-long stretch of hills along the Blanco River that was the
probable location. The land owner agreed to the search, and after a
little more than two hours of combing rugged hills, I spotted the
characteristic brown of a weathered iron meteorite.
The Wimberley meteorite is a 7 1/4-kg (16-pound) octahedrite. The
fragment which matches the main mass - was polished, and etched with
dilute acid to reveal the Widmannstätten pattern characteristic of iron
meteorites. Following detailed study, the meteorite will be displayed at
the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, whose planetarium staff,
Ron DiIulio and Larry Sessions, took part in the search.

JOHN O. WILLIAMS
Richland College Cosmic Theatre
12800 Abrams Rd.
Dallas, Tex. 75243


Best wishes and good night,

Bernd

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