[meteorite-list] "Fossil" as a [17th century] term for excavated meteorite

From: bernd.pauli at paulinet.de <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: 02 Dec 2007 20:03:16 UT
Message-ID: <DIIE.000000BD0000235F_at_paulinet.de>

Chris inquired:

"Can anyone tell me when the word 'fossil' was
 first used to describe meteorites of this kind?

It looks like this word has never been used at any time
before the late 20th century to describe meteorites.

Best regards,

Bernd


BUCHWALD V.F. (1975) Handbook of Iron Meteorites, Volume 3, pp. 1403-1408:

Monturaqui:

Taenite ribbons and plessite fields occurred locally; the fields were up to 1.1 x 0.4 mm
in size, but were "fossil"; i.e., what remained was really only the high-nickel rim zones
and the retained taenite (austenite) around martensite of high-nickel, high-carbon
morphology.

Thorslund, P., Wickman, F.E. (1981) Middle Ordovician chondrite in fossiliferous
limestone from Brunflo, central Sweden (Nature, 289:285- 286).

Catalogue of Meteorites (5th ed.) - Mar'inka: Cosmogenic Mn-53 is also similar to Sikhote-Alin
values; it gives a terrestrial age of < 10 m.y. Alekseev et al. conclude that Mar'inka cannot be
a fossil meteorite, but is probably a fragment of Sikhote-Alin, while some details of its trace
element chemistry differ from Sikhote-Alin (Met.Bull. 72, Meteoritics 27, 1992).

SICREE A.A. et al. (1997) Potential for preservation and recovery of fossil iron meteorites
from coal, trona, limestone and other sedimentary rocks (Meteoritics 32-4, 1997, A121):

.. Lake Murray (Oklahoma), a IIB coarsest iron (10 mm) found in Cretaceous sandstone
and the oldest known 'paleoiron' [Ref.: LaPaz L. (1953) Meteoritics 1, pp. 109-113].

KRING D.A. et al. (1998) Gold Basin Meteorite Strewn Field: The 'Fossil' remnants
of an asteroid that catastrophically fragmented in Earth's atmosphere (Lunar and
Planetary Science XXIX, in press, 1998).

GOLD D.P. et al. (1999) A strategy for the search and recovery of fossil
iron meteorites in sedimentary rocks (MAPS 34-4, 1999, A044).

NORTON O.R. (1999) The Lake Murray octahedrite - a "fossil" meteorite
(M! Nov. 1999, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 22-23).

STEPNIEWSKI M. et al. (2000) Preliminary study of a new enstatite meteorite from
Zaklodzie - southeast Poland (MAPS 35-5, 2000, Suppl., A152): "...According to the
present results, Zaklodzie could be a fossil stone altered by weathering processes
(W1/W2) and preserved in quaternary loess sediment ..."

HECK PH.R. et al. (2003) Evidence for the L-chondrite parent body breakup event?
Cosmic-ray exposure ages of 480 Myr old fossil meteorites (MAPS 38-7, 2003, A044).
Received on Sun 02 Dec 2007 03:03:16 PM PST