[meteorite-list] Re: hunting (and radiometric dating)

From: almitt <almitt_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:44:43 2004
Message-ID: <3ABF0E95.432DACB7_at_kconline.com>

Hi Sterling and all,

I live here in Indiana and regardless what they think the terrestrial age is, based on
what the weather is
like here now, there is no way this piece would be as pristine as it is with black
fusion crust. Indiana has a whole lot of rain and snow especially during a change of
seasons and a piece like Lafayette would
have withered into nothingness long ago. Combine that with the fact that it was
suppose to have been
witnessed to fall I see a big fault with the dating. I'll repost the fall story here
now for those interested.


The Lafayette Meteorite
By H.H. Nininger

Little is known regarding the date and time of this remarkable fall, but the fresh
appearance
renders it practically certain that it wasn't on the Earth long before its discovery
and recovery
before the mechanical abuses of nature took over. A story is told that a black student
of
Purdue University, Indiana reported that a number of years ago while fishing at the
edge of a
little lake he was frightened by the falling of a stone at a distance of only a few
feet from him.
The stone was dug up from soft mud and found it to be "shaped just like a corn pone"
and
of about the same size. For a time he preserved the stone and later took it to the
University
to shed some information on it. This report was never substantiated for the reason
that the
person could not be located.

What ever its history it was first recognized by Dr. O.C Farrington while classifying
some minerals and rocks for the department of geology in Purdue University in 1931.
Up
until that time the specimen had been regarded as a glacial boulder or pebble and the
surface markings were thought to be the results of glacial scratches due to its
origin. To a
student of meteorites, the Lafayette stone at once becomes a very impressive example
of the
result of an oriented flight through the atmosphere. As far as it is known to this
writer no
other meteorite records such a flight more perfectly. Fine crinkley ridges radiate
from the
central point of the spheroidal front of blackish glass. 27 threadlines were counted
to run
unbroken to the periphery. Between these primaries are one to three secondaires that
start
short of the central area and continue to the periphery.

Altogether the lined surface of the stone gives the impression that it has been formed

by the cooling down from a condition in which the surface of the entire front was in
a
liquid state to a temperature below the melting point of the stone which allowed
molten
matter to congeal while in the process of being swept away. The high viscosity of the
liquid
re-sulted in the formation of more or less perfect beads, where the sweep of the air
was
not too powerful. Some of the prominence appear to be the result of unequal melting of

the underlying particles of the stone. The base of the stone represents a totally
different
appearance and is flat.

The interior of the Lafayette stone constitutes one of those rare stones that shows no

metallic inclusions on a polished surface. Three polished surfaces were examined show-

ing no metallic inclusions or iron nickel. The interior is an aggregate of slender
prismatic
crystals of a olive drab color, with a sprinkling of lighter and darker particles,
some almost black. There is no suggestion of a chondrite structure visible in any of
the
three cut surfaces and therefore falls in the division of achondrites. Dr. W.A.
Waldschmidt
of the Colorado School of Mines examined a sample of the stone and found it to be
mainly
a monoclinic pyroxine, probably diopside and therefore it should be classified with
the
Nakhlites of Prior. Principal mass of the stone is about 800 grams and is preserved in

the Geological Collection of Purdue.

Nininger states that Farrington might have had information on the details of the
stone.
It's not sure if he had done some investigative work or not and had planned to write a

formal paper on the stone.Unfortunately Farrington died before writing the paper and
no documents were found in his files perhaps details lost when he died.

Source: The Published Papers Of H.H. Nininger
By the Center for Meteorite Studies Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

Published originally in Popular Astronomy 1935

The Nininger Moments are articles or books written originally by Harvey
Nininger and put into a consolidated form by Al Mitterling. Some of the
items written in the moments might be old out dated material and the
reader is advised to keep this in mind. Please request permission for
further publication of the Moments.


--AL
Received on Mon 26 Mar 2001 04:40:38 AM PST