[meteorite-list] The Ch'ing-yang Event

From: Mark Fox <unclefireballmtf_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:54:04 2004
Message-ID: <20020214020203.10286.qmail_at_web14914.mail.yahoo.com>

February 13, 2002

Greetings Meteorite Enthusiasts!

Although it did take a bit of time, I managed to print
out the Yau et al. article detailing Chinese meteorite
falls and some related human casualty events. Most
interesting, I must say!

Nevertheless, the authors considered the 1490
Feb./Mar. Ch'ing-yang event as rather implausible in
terms of the number of deaths (tens of thousands)
and the small area of impact. Their suspicions, of
course, is no doubt shared by many other meteorite
enthusiasts and scientists, including me to a degree.
 Nevertheless, in support of the documented evidence,
the authors point to the devastation caused by
Tunguska. This is where I don't think they picked
the best example to help support the Ch'ing-yang
reports. The devastations described in both events
are too different for one thing, with a huge
bomb-like blast in the Tunguska event vs. a shower of
stones in Ch'ing-yang. Perhaps a just-as-good
example or better in support of the purported deaths
caused by a hail of stones would be the famous Sikote
Alin meteorite fall. Although composed of hard
iron-nickel, the specimens from that event show quite
clearly what would happen to a city if a similar
shower would have fallen on one instead of a woods.
The result would be like a meteoritic machine gun.

Forgive me if I have left any errors in this e-mail!
I wrote it rather fast.

Long strewn fields!

Mark Fox
Newaygo, MI USA

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Received on Wed 13 Feb 2002 09:02:03 PM PST