[meteorite-list] Holbrook

From: Steve Schoner <steve_schoner_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:21:05 2004
Message-ID: <20030716161052.68459.qmail_at_web12705.mail.yahoo.com>

Ugh,

I hate yahoo's spell checker... I cannot get it, and
errors always come out AFTER it is sent.

The date on Scorse note was "July 19th, 1912" not July
12th, 1912 as I had said previously.

Steve

--- Steve Schoner <steve_schoner_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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-- at
about the time while
> even urelites, Kenna was going for the extraordinary
> $1.50 per gram).
>
> In the Conversation, Nininger mentioned that he had
> heard reports from witneness's that had seen the
> fireball, and maybe even Mrs Scorse herself, though
> 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
>
=== message truncated ===


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Received on Wed 16 Jul 2003 12:10:52 PM PDT