[meteorite-list] Cabin Creek

From: bernd.pauli_at_paulinet.de <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Oct 4 15:48:34 2004
Message-ID: <DIIE.00000015000029C0_at_paulinet.de>

Hello Peter, Amber, and List,

Here is an excerpt from Vagn Buchwald's
comments on the Cabin Creek iron. Enjoy!

Best wishes,

Bernd


BUCHWALD V.F. (1975) Handbook of Iron Meteorites (Volume 2, pp. 359-362):

Cabin Creek, Arkansas, U.S.A. (35? 27' N, 093? 19' W)
Medium octahedrite, Om. Bandwidth 1.1 ? 0.2 mm. Neumann bands.
Uncertain position (IIIA?)* due to the lack of material.
About 8 % Ni and 0.3% P.

*The 5th edition of the Catalogue says it is a IIIAB iron.

This meteorite, of which little is known except for the exterior shape, fell at 3:17 p.m.
on March 27, 1886. It was accompanied by all the usual effects of a falling meteorite
and was heard and seen by numerous people in the counties of Crawford, Franklin,
Johnson, Pope, Logan and Yell on both sides of the Arkansas River, an area of at
least 125 x 125 km. People in the town of Dardanelle, about 25 km southeast of the
landing site, were startled by an unusually loud report, accompanied by a peculiar
whizzing sound as if hot metal had come in contact with water. They saw the smoke
trail in a partly cloudy sky and heard another terrific explosion before everything was
quiet again. Unfortunately, the reports printed by Kunz (1887a) gave little information
of the direction of the moving meteorite and few other details of the fall itself.

The mass of 107 pounds (48.2 kg) fell almost vertically through the last part of its trajectory,
due to air resistance. It broke some branches off a tall pine tree and buried itself 90 cm in
the ground, only about 10 km east of Cabin Creek (now Lamar), and 7 km north of the mouth
of Piney Creek, on the east side. The corresponding coordinates are given above. Three hours
after the fall, Mr. and Mrs. Shandy were able to find the hole and excavate the mass, reportedly
still uncomfortably warm. It was sold to Mayor Caraway, who in turn sold it to Colonel J.C. Betten.

A small fragment was sent to Professor Clarke at the Smithsonian Institution (U.S.N.M. no.76,
34 g), but the main mass was, after having been exhibited at Eureka Springs for some time,
sold to the New York lapidary and collector, G.F. Kunz, who described it and reproduced
photographs of the exterior (1887a). About 1890, Kunz's valuable collection, comprising 91
different meteorites, was sold to the Naturhistorisches Hofmuseum in Vienna, reportedly aided
by a grant of 159,000 Austrian florins (about $65,000) from Albert Mayer von Gunthof (Brezina
1896: 234).

Brezina described the iron with excellent macrophotographs of the exterior (1892) and gave a
brief description of the interior structure (1896: 283). Heide (1957: figure 70), Rinehart
(1958), Mason (1962a: figure 21), B?hler (1988, p. 117, figure 5.13) and others have also
reproduced photographs of the exterior shape.

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Received on Mon 04 Oct 2004 03:48:33 PM PDT