[meteorite-list] Barringer Meteor $$$$

From: Steve Schoner <steve_schoner_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:25:37 2004
Message-ID: <20030508175227.95813.qmail_at_web12702.mail.yahoo.com>

Undoubtedly, many large meteorites were sent to old
Canyon Diablo for shipping to the east.

They were probably stored at the train station for
loading and iron shale chipped off of the freshly dug
specimens waiting for shipment. After all, it would
have been very impractical to ship a 300 or more pound
meteorite by stagecoach when a train station was
nearby. Quite a few large specimens were found around
the crater and many of these are in major museums back
East. They probably were shipped via Canyon Diablo
train station. It would be an interesting project for
someone history inclined to confirm this by finding
the Santa Fe shipping records for the station at
Canyon Diablo. Railroads were very careful about
ledgers, and it is possible that Santa Fe has these
buried in their records.

But I still think that finding such shale there at old
Canyon Diablo would not indicate that trainloads of
iron were shipped to El Paso for smelting.

Meteorite iron is extremely difficult to smelt into
usable iron. Blades have been made from it using a
Damascus technique, but it is very hard to do. And
recently Bob Haag tried it with his memorable,
"Meteorite Medallions" I think he spent over $100,000
in the venture and the result was very un-profitable
for him. If I recall he mentioned that 2 out of every
three fractured on cooling.

Smelting meteorite iron can be done, but it takes more
than just mere application of extreme heat. There
must also be a separation step to remove Ni and other
elements to get a usable iron.

Undoubtedly, the ancients figured it out, but when in
the dawn of the iron age when they figured out how to
extract iron from terrestrial ores, they left the
difficult to smelt iron meteorite alone.

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



--- MeteorHntr_at_aol.com wrote:
> Hello steve_schoner_at_yahoo.com,
>
> In reference to your comment:
>
> è Actually the train loads of irons story is
> probably
> è apocryphal.
>
> Hello Steve and All.
>
> I remember finding CD Shale at the railroad station
> north of the Crater on
> one of my earlier Tucson trips. Something probably
> got loaded there, but
> there is no way for me to know how much.
>
> Steve Arnold
>
>
> ========Original Message========
> Subj: Re: [meteorite-list] Barringer Meteor $$$$
> Date: 5/7/2003 11:54:44 PM Central Daylight Time
> From: <A
>
HREF="mailto:steve_schoner_at_yahoo.com">steve_schoner@yahoo.com</A>
>
> To: <A
>
HREF="mailto:knudson911_at_frontiernet.net">knudson911@frontiernet.net</A>,
> <A
> HREF="mailto:mlblood_at_cox.net">mlblood@cox.net</A>,
> <A
>
HREF="mailto:StarHarvest_at_aol.com">StarHarvest@aol.com</A>,
> <A
> HREF="mailto:meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com">
> meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com</A>
> Sent from the Internet (Details)
>
>
>
> Actually the train loads of irons story is probably
> apocryphal.
>
> The time that train loads of collections were made,
> according to the story was during the time of
> Holsinger and before. The irons, if they were
> collected for smelting, were found on the surface.
> And can you imagine what that place must have been
> like? Holsinger mapped in a slipshod fashion in
> 1909
> the finds that he and his team made around the
> crater.
> When I attempted to do a detailed map using GPS for
> locations for 20 square miles in select sections
> around the crater, the first place that was assigned
> to me was several state sections in the eastern part
> of Buffalo Range. It was very, very slim with
> regards
> to meteorites and the largest one that I found there
> was 470 grams. Many were very small, like shrapnel,
> which was strange being that the distance from the
> rim
> of the crater was over 5 miles. The fragments were
> seen by Drs. Shoemaker, Roddy and Wasson. Dr.
> Wasson
> currently has the fragments that I found.
>
> The distribution of these finds in those sections
> were
> roughly consistent with what Holsinger reported in
> 1909, and I found that very few of any significant
> size were found there by me or previously by
> Holsinger.
>
> The project that I was involved in was killed by
> Bar-T-Bar aka Meteor Crater Enterprises. They
> stonewalled me for years and refused to allow me or
> others related to my project to search their
> sections.
> I met every demand; every condition. In their
> demands for University backing; first UCLA, I even
> had
> the late Dr Roddy, and Dr. Shoemaker on my side in
> this project. They supported it to no avail, and
> Meteor Crater Enterprises, aka Bar-T-Bar ranch
> refused
> to allow a search of their holdings. They even went
> so far as to dissuade members of Flying M Ranch,
> after
> they heard that Flying M had given me permission
> under
> guidance of UCLA's Dr. Wasson to search their
> holdings. It was enough pressure to cause Flying M
> to
> withdraw support for the project, just as I was
> getting ready to begin my initial search.
>
> In all of this I submitting all of my finds made at
> Buffalo Range with GPS coordinates to UCLA, and even
> agreed to opened up my private collection for
> inspections, just to show them that I did not
> "poach"
> any of my finds from their lands of interest.
>
> Every demand I met, and they still refused. Thus I
> tried to get around the hoops and demands that they
> threw at me for ten years.
>
> "Holsinger did it already" was their standard reply.
>
> And where are Holsinger's meteorites?
>
> My aim in the project-- Properly cataloged CD
> meteorites with numbers and exact GPS locations, so
> that researchers today and in the future would have
> a
> collection of meteoritical material from every
> direction around the crater. The specific aim of my
> project was to find the "Type III" irons that Dr.
> Nininger mentioned, and to determine if this type
> was
> only to be found on one particular sector of the
> lands
> arround the crater. So different Type III irons are
> there is question as to wheater they relate to
> normal
> Canyon Diablo irons at all. Finding a distribution
> field for this iron would be helpful in resolving
> the
> question one way or the other. I spoke with
> Nininger
> about this possibility and he thought that further
> research needed to be done on the Type III's. I had
> a
> slice of one of these "Type III" irons which I years
> ago sold to Dr. Wasson at UCLA.
>
> (Best not mention Dr. Nininger's name there at
> Meteor
> Crater... for they consider him a thief, or a
> "poacher." They give him no regard at all when it
> comes to the significant work that he did there for
> the years that he lived in that now dilapidated
> museum
> located on the road leading in to the Crater
> property)
>
> And I was also interested in determining if there
> was a tie between the Winona Meteorite and the
> impactor that created the crater. In fact, over 25
> years earlier, I had found a very large piece of
> oxide
> that was significantly different from other pieces
> of
> oxide that I had seen. I was very impressed with
> the
> green streaks over its surface and its odd dark tan
> matrix. I left a 15 to 20 lb chunk of it where I
> had
> found it, not interested in mere oxide.
>
> When I saw the ten pounds of Winona currently
> preserved in the original burial cyst at the Museum
> of
> Northern Arizona... I was transfixed by its
> appearance... IT WAS EXACTLY LIKE THE MATERIAL THAT
> I
> HAD FOUND OVER 25 YEARS PREVIOUS NEAR METEOR CRATER!
>
> And I even said so to Dr. Wasson who was with me at
> the time. I was very excited about this possibility
> and we discussed it at the time.
>
> I am convinced that Winona is related to Meteor
> Crater, and one of the aims of my research was to
> find
> pieces of it, a material that is so un-remarkable
> that
> it is most likely discarded as oxide. Except for
> the
> green Ni stains it is even less impressive than
> normal
> meteor crater oxide.
>
> In a nutshell these were the broad aims of my
> research
> project, and I met the conditions set by Meteor
> Crater
> Enterprises, aka Bar-T-Bar Ranch.
>
> "Holsinger did it already" they say...
>
> Then where are the meteorites he recovered?
>
> Probably wound up with those smelted in El Paso, and
> the "data", crude as it is, put on a slipshod map.
>
> And this is my opinion on the matter... As far as
> further Meteor Crater meteorite research will be
> allowed to go. I am too old to do my project now,
> and
> my health is now too fragile to endure the task
> which
>
=== message truncated ===


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Received on Thu 08 May 2003 01:52:27 PM PDT