[meteorite-list] New Interest Shown in 1918 Richardton Meteorite

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Jan 9 00:57:28 2006
Message-ID: <200601090529.k095RdC08525_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/13573922.htm

New interest shown in 1918 Richardton meteorite
Minot Daily News
By ELOISE OGDEN
January 7, 2006

RICHARDTON, N.D. - There's a box in the archives at the Assumption
Abbey, filled with information about a meteorite that fell near this
city more than 80 years ago.

Whenever the Rev. Odo Muggli comes across articles and other information
about the famous meteorite, he puts it in the box.

"It's probably one of the most complete files on the Richardton
meteorite," Muggli said.

Muggli has a special interest in the Richardton meteorite. His uncles,
Isidore and Gerard Muggli, witnessed the falling meteorite on June 30,
1918, and his father, Zeno Muggli, was a broker for the meteorite pieces
that people found. Zeno, a farmer, sent pieces of the stony meteorite to
laboratories and universities for scientific research.

"My dad was a broker for the pieces in the '30s and '40s," Muggli said.

Another brother of Zeno, John, also was a meteorite broker.

There's new interest in North Dakota in the Richardton meteorite.

The state Department of Mineral Resources - the new name for the Oil and
Gas Division and state Geological Survey - and the State Historical
Society of North Dakota have asked the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington, D.C., to return specimens of the Richardton meteorite and
specimens of an iron meteorite found on a farm near New Leipzig in 1936.

The specimens would be for new paleontology exhibits set to open in the
North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck in June.

Specimens of nine different meteorites have been found in North Dakota,
but the Richardton meteorite is considered the most studied and best
documented meteorite ever to fall in the state.

"It's the only one in North Dakota that has been witnessed," said Ed
Murphy director and state geologist for the North Dakota Geological Survey.

The Richardton meteorite was seen over more than 400 square miles, and
the noise created by the breakup of the meteorite into chunks in the
atmosphere, described as being similar to an intense explosion, could be
heard over an area spanning at least 250 square miles, said Murphy and
Nels Forsman, authors of "Meteorites in North Dakota," published in 1998.

About 150 specimens with a combined weight of 220 pounds have been
recovered from the Richardton meteorite, they said.

Muggli has a small piece of the meteorite.

"I would say it's about the size of my thumb. I would say it's
three-quarters of an inch in diameter. Three sides are black where it
entered the atmosphere and got burned, the other side is the saw cut
where they cut a piece off," he said.

Zeno Muggli shipped many pieces of the meteorite to various places but
for some reason, he never kept a piece for himself, Odo Muggli said. In
1980, Odo Muggli wrote to St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn.,
which had a specimen of the meteorite, and asked for a sample of it.
Officials there gave him the small specimen.

On that night in June 1918, at about 10 or 10:30 p.m., Odo Muggli's
uncles, Isidore and Gerard Muggli, witnessed the falling meteorite.

"They were coming home from Dickinson and they saw this thing," he said.
"They saw the flash and they stopped the car."

Isidore sent a letter to Zeno some years later - in 1939 - describing
the event. He said: "As I recall the event, I would say the flash or
light came first and then the thundering, rumbling or vibrating sound
followed."

Isidore said the light became more and more brilliant until the
explosion, and the sound continued for some time after the light was gone.

"The light was so bright, it seemed like daylight, and the noise or
thundering was more larger than the result from lightning. You could
tell it was something powerful," Isidore said.

He said the next morning, farmers south of Richardton said "some stones
fell" and he realized what he actually suspected had happened.

"The light was bright, but the thundering is something not so easily
forgotten, it was big, it covered a large territory, you could tell that
and of course, very deep in tone," Isidore said.

Murphy said the largest piece of the meteorite reportedly found weighed
18 pounds.

There's not much talk around Richardton anymore about the meteorite.

"I'm one of the few," Muggli said.

He said the meteorite came down in an area about 17 miles south of
Richardton and about two miles east of N.D. Highway 8.

Muggli said his father drew out a line with the angle at which the
meteorite came down, based on an article.

"He was always looking for pieces along that line," Muggli said. "He'd
pick up pieces and other people would bring them to him, and he would
send them to labs, mainly for scientific research. He would put them in
pieces of inner tubes and tie the ends shut so they wouldn't bang
against each other. That was how he told me he always shipped those
things out. "

In the 1970s, Odo Muggli and his father, who was about 80 at the time,
visited a large meteorite display at the Smithsonian.

"They had the Richardson meteorite on this big board and it said,
'unobserved.' And my dad said, 'That's absolutely ridiculous, it was
observed by lots of farmers,'" Muggli recalled.

When Zeno Muggli got back to Richardton, he fired a letter off to the
Smithsonian saying the Richardton meteorite was witnessed probably by
more people than most of such falls.

Roy S. Clarke Jr., curator of the Division of Meteorites for the
Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, sent a letter to Zeno
a few days later, apologizing for the mistake and saying he would have
it corrected. He told Zeno the museum has several specimens of the
meteorite in its collection.

Zeno Muggli kept looking for pieces in North Dakota.

"We looked on many Sunday afternoons. We got permission of the
landowners to look," Odo Muggli said. "That's what my dad was trying to
find - the big chunk. We did look around on the ground, but no luck."
Received on Mon 09 Jan 2006 12:27:38 AM PST