[meteorite-list] What's the highest meteorite ever found?

From: dean bessey <deanbessey_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:43:33 2004
Message-ID: <LAW2-F74YTgetZ3G9yT00002966_at_hotmail.com>

I have wondered if meteorites are more likely to be found at higher
altatudes (Everything else being equal which of course it never is) than at
lower altitudes. The idea of course is that if you are 3 or 4 kilomiters up
(Like many dry and barren places in the atacama for instance) the rock has 3
or 4 km less of atmosphere to burn - and also eliminating the thickest
portion of atmosphere. (Which immeadiately leads to a second theory - which
is, are you more likely to find smaller meteorites at higher altitudes that
are almost burned totally away and would not have made it another 4000
meters).
>From what I understand there is no real evidence to support this (Dar Al
Gani is only half a kilometer in altitude I do beleive) but I dont think
that anybody has actually studied wither or not it is true so there is no
real evidence one way or the other - and much of the higher deserts such as
the gobi and large areas of the atacama hasnt been extensively searched. The
siesmically active atacama would likely eliminate many meteorites also so
that would possibly skew the stats also.
I wonder how much of the rock burns up in the last 4 km to sea level?
(Compared to the amount that burns up from space to 4km more to go). Would
different types of meteorites have different burn ratios? (ie: where best to
find those achondrites and Cs). Stats on the number of meteorites found at
various altatudes might be interesting if somebody was able to compile it.
Cheers
DEAN





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Received on Sat 21 Jul 2001 02:51:19 AM PDT