[meteorite-list] Meteorite May Have Fallen In Maryland

From: Stephen E. Smith <vickie-steve-smith_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:54:11 2004
Message-ID: <3C7E9CCF.B807420A_at_erols.com>

Hi everyone,
    I just spoke to Mrs. Pearce about the stone. They took it to the Smithsonian today and it
turns out to be sandstone. They are very embarrassed and were sorry their friend from NASA
called the media.
    I am sending both their boys a meteorite so they aren't disappointed about the whole
experience. Steve

Ron Baalke wrote:

> http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/bal-te.md.meteor28feb28.story?coll=bal%2Dlocal%2Dheadlines
>
> 'Falling star' may have fallen in Md.
>
> Rock: If scientists confirm Dale Pearce's find, the plum-sized meteorite would be
> the fifth found in the state.
>
> By Frank D. Roylance
> Baltimore Sun
> February 28, 2002
>
> Dale Pearce took a rock to work Tuesday and told his co-workers it fell out of the
> sky Saturday night, and he found it in the woods behind his Pasadena home.
>
> Sure, Dale.
>
> They didn't believe him at first. But Pearce may get the last laugh.
>
> The plum-sized rock that he says blazed out of the sky and smacked into the ground
> behind the Pasadena Crossroads Shopping Center has been identified by a NASA
> scientist as a genuine stony meteorite.
>
> Pearce and his rock were due at the Smithsonian Institution this morning, where
> experts will cut a slice from it to confirm and classify the discovery.
>
> If that proves it's the real thing, the meteorite would become only the fifth known to
> have been found in Maryland, and the first in 83 years.
>
> Following astronomical custom, it would be named after the U.S. post office nearest
> the fall. That would appear to make it the "Glen Burnie Meteorite," although Pearce
> favors Pasadena.
>
> A 40-year-old painter with the Baltimore City housing department, Pearce hopes to
> sell the space rock and make a down payment on a house for himself, his wife,
> Michelle, and their two sons, Brad, 10, and Collin, 6.
>
> Turning the dark reddish-brown rock over in his hand yesterday, he said he didn't
> blame people for doubting his story. "It's kind of hard to believe I'd seen a shooting
> star and actually found it, and here's the rock. I'd be a skeptic, too."
>
> But Michael J. Mumma, chief scientist for planetary research at NASA's Goddard
> Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, has seen the rock, and the spot where it fell. And
> he's a believer.
>
> Mumma got involved Sunday after Pearce showed his find to a friend, Terry Kimmel,
> a dentist who lives in Arnold. Kimmel was impressed enough to phone his friend -
> Mumma - who studies comets and other "primitive" relics of the early solar system.
>
> Mumma invited them to his house in Glen Oban, near Annapolis. "As soon as I saw
> the stone it was immediately obvious to me it was a meteorite," Mumma said.
>
> The saddle-shaped rock shows no sign of weathering, fracturing or tampering. Most
> tellingly, it has a smooth, black sheen on one side that scientists call a fusion crust -
> a thin layer melted briefly by friction as a meteor blazes through the atmosphere.
>
> It has evidence of chondrules - tiny spherical globs of minerals that condensed 4 1/2
> billion years ago in the disk of gas and dust that formed the sun and planets.
>
> "This was another indication this was a chondritic meteorite," a stony type and the
> most common found in observed meteor falls, Mumma said. Iron-metal meteorites,
> and carbonaceous types are rarer, more valuable to collectors and important to
> science.
>
> If the rock's interior reveals chondrules, that should clinch the identification, Mumma
> said.
>
> Pearce led Mumma to the impact site Monday morning. The grapefruit-sized crater
> also appeared genuine, Mumma said. "There was a rather small hole in ground,
> which was well-fitted to the size of the meteorite," he said. It was surrounded by a
> foot-wide fan of loose dirt.
>
> Scientists say meteors this size enter the atmosphere at 18 miles per second. But
> they're slowed by the atmosphere and usually strike the surface at about 200 mph.
>
> "I asked him to put the stone in the hole exactly where he found it so I could
> photograph it. He put it in with the fusion side down, which is exactly what it should
> be."
>
> Pearce said he had just gotten into his van about 9:10 p.m. Saturday, preparing to
> drive from his Kellington Drive home to pick up a tool at his brother-in-law's house.
> "I had the key in the ignition, and I looked up and saw a streak of light," he said.
>
> In a "split second," it flashed from north to south, trailing a column of blue, green and
> red light. It passed behind the tower on the Kaiser Permanente building in the 8000
> block of Ritchie Highway, and vanished into the woods behind.
>
> "A falling star - that's the first thing that came to my mind, although it was the first
> time I had ever witnessed one," Pearce said.
>
> He might not be the only one who spotted it. A Lutherville resident telephoned The
> Sun on Monday morning and said he was startled by a bright shooting star toward
> the southeast about 9:15 p.m. Saturday. He said it had a tail of blue, yellow and red
> light.
>
> Pearce noted where the meteor vanished. The next afternoon, he headed into the
> woods with his sons. He told them it was a treasure hunt. "I thought we were going
> to find a star," said Collin.
>
> Pearce has walked these woods often with his boys, and knows them well. It's a
> large patch of young poplars, gum, beech and pine trees, thick with sticker bushes
> and vines. It took Pearce and his sons 20 minutes to find the stone, resting in its
> little crater beside a deer trail.
>
> "He was really excited," his wife said. "How many times in your life do you find
> something like this? I'm really happy for him."
>
> Tim McCoy, curator of meteorites at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History
> in Washington, gets his first look at the stone today. "We get probably 200
> specimens a year that people think are meteorites. If we're lucky, one or two actually
> turn out to be meteorites." But fakery is rare, he said.
>
> Based on Mumma's photos, McCoy gives Pearce's rock better than the normal odds
> of being a meteorite. "This one I'd say was better than 25 percent, but ... it's so hard
> to tell anything from pictures."
>
> Earth plows into an estimated 16,000 tons of meteoritic material every year.
> "Shooting stars" can be seen on any clear night, but most are smaller than a grain of
> sand and vaporize before they reach the surface. Those that do reach Earth usually
> fall in the oceans.
>
> One estimate is that one freshly fallen meteorite is recovered per year for every
> 386,000 square miles of land.
>
> "I would guess that 15 or 20 times a year around the world somebody observes a fall
> and goes and picks up the meteorites," McCoy said.
>
> Smithsonian records show only four previous meteorite finds in Maryland. The
> earliest was a 16 1/2 -pound rock that was seen to fall at noon Feb. 10, 1825, near
> Nanjemoy, in Charles County.
>
> A 1-pound iron meteorite was found near Emmittsburg, in Frederick County, in
> 1854. Another, weighing almost 3 pounds, was plowed up in Garrett County, near
> Lonaconing, in 1888.
>
> The last known meteorite fall in Maryland was a daylight impact a mile from St.
> Jerome's Creek, in St. Mary's County, on June 20, 1919.
>
> Pearce says if his find is authenticated, he will sell it. Collectors are paying $1 to
> $300 per gram, depending on a meteorite's rarity, McCoy said. Mumma estimated
> this one weighs 150 to 200 grams - a third- to almost a half-pound.
>
> If it's an ordinary chondrite as Mumma suspects, it would be worth only a few
> hundred dollars. If so, he's counseled Pearce to keep it for his kids.
>
> McCoy said the Smithsonian will keep the slice cut today for study, and would make
> a bid for the rest if the stone is genuine. "We get a lot of visitors from Maryland, and
> it's the kind of thing we like to have available and put on display."
>
> "People think meteorites fall everywhere else, but not near them," he said. "The
> most exciting thing is that this can happen in their back yard."
>
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Received on Thu 28 Feb 2002 04:10:40 PM PST