[meteorite-list] Holbrook

From: Steve Schoner <steve_schoner_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:21:05 2004
Message-ID: <20030716154901.98581.qmail_at_web12708.mail.yahoo.com>

Humm,

I don't know who that other person from Flagstaff
is... Thought I knew everyone here that searches for
meteorites.

Anyway, my searches of Holbrook go all the way back to
1967. It was a very interesting place then and Arntz
Station, (renamed Aztec) was still there. The major
parts of the building was right south of the tracks,
and there was one of those very interesting "Petticoat
Junction" water towers for filling steam engines still
standing nearby (Remember that popular TV Show in the
'60's).

There was in the late 1970's a derailment there and
the entire site was wiped out, so that now it left as
it is seen today today.

All told from 1967 to 1993, I found almost 900 small
stones, mostly between microscopic in size to 3 or 4
grams each. Large ones are very hard to find, and it
seems from what I have gleaned, even shortly after it
fell the vast majority of them were very small. I did
a study of it years ago, and of the 16,000 samples
found in 1967 only a few were even close to a pound or
more, less than 20 in fact. Those included in the
weight spread gave a total weight of something, if I
can remember of somewhere near 13 grams average
weight.

The average weight of those that I found was quite a
bit lower than that. But of the 900 stones that I
found the largest ones were 238 grams, 237 grams, 221
g., 28 g., 19g, 15 g, 10 g, and 9 g... all the rest
were mostly in the 1 to 3 gram range with a handful
between 3 and 9 grams.

As previous finders reported, the distribution was
such that the few large and small stones were
interspersed together over an area of about 2 x 3
miles.

In the 1970's I bought a bottle of Holbrooks from a
Mrs Scorse living in Holbrook. She was an elderly
lady then, and was out gardening when the fall
occurred.

She was one of the very few that actually saw the
fireball that day as it passed overhead going east. I
spoke with her on the phone and she related the event
to me.

As I recall she said,

"I was out gardening at that time, 7:00 PM when I
noticed a light in the western sky, I looked up and
saw a ball of light in the clouds, and the clouds
obscured it. It was moving very fast, and when just
having past Holbrook going east it exploded into a
shower of sparks, but there was another fireball
coming out of it that went for another second or so
going farther east before it too exploded. It was
shortly after that a person from back east began to
solicit people for meteorites (Dr. Foote?) and I and
many others went out there in carriages and motorcars
to search in mass for these...."

I still have that the little jelly jar of meteorites
that she found, 130 grams of stones from .5 to 39
grams each, with a little piece of paper inside
saying: "I Mrs. Henry Scorse saw these fall, July
12th, 1912"

Now, what had me interested then, in the 1970's, was
her statement that a portion of the fireball continued
for a second or two before it exploded. I mentioned
this story to Dr. Nininger, as I was considering
buying these samples from Mrs Scorse and wanted to get
the Dr. Nininger price, which was a fair price in 1975
for Holbrooks, (get this .60 cents per gram-- while
even urelites, Kenna was going for the extraordinary
$1.50 per gram).

In the Conversation, Nininger mentioned that he had
heard reports from worthiness's that had seen the
fireball, and maybe even Mrs Scorse herself, thought
he could not emphatically say that remembered speaking
with her.

But he concurred that he was aware that some of the
reporters that he heard indicated that the fireball
might have broken into two. The closer one falling at
the currently recognized site and the other one
continuing on for a second or two.

If so, there could very well be another as yet
undiscovered portion of the Holbrook strewn field out
there.

If so, then the second strewn field, if the bolide
traveling at 10 to 15 miles per second, at that time,
coming from the east at sundown, then the fragments
would have fallen 10 to 30 miles farther east...
Accounting for a that speed times up to two seconds
duration for the continued flight.

That would put it somewhere at or beyond the boundary
of the Petrified Forest National Park... Not good for
meteorite hunting... :-(

But it could have fallen closer to the original site,
perhaps near Adamana. (I searched there, many years
ago, and found nothing except a lot of junk from the
train station that was there. Now, I am not sure if
anyone can search there, as I was told that the area
is closed, having been bought out by some land company
or some other Federal agency.

One thing is certain with regards to the Holbrook
strewnfield. Most of the pieces are very small.
Subtracting all of the large ones that have been
found, anything above one ounce, will give an average
weight of about 1 gram or so. And I have noticed that
many of the 900 pieces that I found showed
orientation. My hunch is that the first explosion was
at high altitude, mostly breaking it up, but a larger
piece of the bolide might have survived to penetrate
deeper into the atmosphere before it to broke up,
perhaps producing another strewnfield with larger
pieces.

If so, it would be nice to search and find it... But
to now, it is just a theory, based on a few eyewitness
observations of a fireball that was not widely
observed.

Steve Schoner/ams
http://www.geocities.com/meteorite_identification

BTW: It amazes me how much of this I can remember.
But when one spends so much time out there thinking
about it, one remembers.
 

 


--- Dave Andrews <dandre10_at_cybertrails.com> wrote:
> >
> > Dave is unquestionably the King of the
> Strewnfield, as is evidenced
> > by this latest ~50-grammer. Congrats, Dave!
>
> John and Greg(ory),
> Thanks for the HUGE compliments, but I wouldn't go
> that far as say
> "King". I'm just lucky (or should I say, unlucky)
> enough to live here.
> Actually, if the truth be known, I only go out
> there to hunt about 3-4
> times a year. The real "King" is supposedly from
> Flagstaff and he can
> find 10 per hour at about any give time. (And no
> it's not the original
> Holbrook/Glorieta King, Steve Schoner).
>
> Throwing away the polarized sunglasses,
> Davewhowasluckyforaday
>
>
> ______________________________________________
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> Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
>
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Received on Wed 16 Jul 2003 11:49:01 AM PDT