[meteorite-list] Re-Post Nininger Moment #10

From: almitt <almitt_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:23:49 2004
Message-ID: <3E7B18E2.6C174B33_at_kconline.com>

Subject: A Nininger Moment 10
Date: Mon, 24 Dec 1999 05:00:33 -0540
From: almitt <almitt_at_kconline.com>
To: "meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com" <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>



Harvey H. Nininger published a number of papers during his career as both
a professor at McPherson College and during his long and distinguished
career of meteoritic research. According to the Published Papers of H.H.
Nininger, he published a total of 162 papers on meteorites in a 47 year
span of time. These papers often dealt with meteorite recovery, his ideas
on meteorites in general and preservation of meteorites. Nininger certainly
bridged the gap of science at the time when meteorites went largely un-noted
by the universities and colleges of the time. His papers were distributed over
a large range of publications as the American Journal of Science to state
and local natural science publications. Here is one of his published papers
edited for the list.

--AL

How To Recognize Meteorites

By H.H. Nininger

Curator of Meteorite Dept.
Colorado Museum of Natural History

A survey during recent years has demonstrated that on the average less
than one person in a thousand is able to recognize meteorites in their
natural state. Hence this Leaflet. What Meteorites Are Not

1. Meteorites are not light porous rocks. They are often marked by shallow
    pits but aren't porous.

2. They are not round like a ball. At least no round one is yet known.

3. They are not hollow.

4. Meteorites do not come to the ground in a burning condition. They
    do not set fires. They burn while in flight high in the air but generally
    cease burning about 5 to 20 miles up. A few have been know to
    frost over after landing from their natural cosmic coldness from space.

5. They do not look like cinders

What Meteorites are Like

1. Meteorites are much heavier than ordinary rocks.

2. They are generally irregular in shape. They are generally pitted more or
    less. The corners and edges are notably rounded or dulled from atmos-
    pheric flight. A few meteorites are conical in shape.

3. Meteorites are usually covered with a thin fusion crust due to the
    burning during flight in the atmosphere. This crust is nearly or quite
    black in most meteorites at the time of the fall. Later it
     becomes brown from rust if exposed to the weather.

4. Meteorites nearly always contain an alloy of nickel-iron. This metal
    may be in small grains or it may compose most of the meteorite. In
    either case it can be detected by grinding a corner of the suspected
    specimen (where it won't detracted from the beauty of the specimen)
    against the edge of an emery wheel which will reveal bright white metal.
    Meteorites are important for research purposes and good prices are
    paid for them. Any specimen which conforms to the above description
    and meets the emery wheel test should be submitted for other more
    exhaustive tests at the hands of a specialist. The Nininger Laboratory
    makes such tests free of charge if only postage is sent for reply.
    Several pictures accompanied the article showing the surfaces of stones
    and two pictures showing the face of a cut stony meteorite and a cut and
    polished iron with a pattern etched in.

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.


--AL
Received on Fri 21 Mar 2003 08:51:31 AM PST