[meteorite-list] ARCTIC IRONS, was Mammoth Stew, etc

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 17:12:55 -0600
Message-ID: <06ea01c84682$84695ed0$b64fe146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, All,

    You couldn't ask for a less likely place to search for iron
meteorites than the Canadian Arctic. First, a great deal of
Canadian Arctic surficial material was "pushed" far south by
those glaciers; there's a nice "car-eating" three-ton chunk of
Canada on the road about a quarter-mile from my house (Illinois).
Then, there's Bigger-Than-Biblical Floods at the end of glaciations,
which would disperse the material remains (meteorites) of an
impact. Then, there's those Jack-Daw Humans, picking them
all up and using the iron for tools!

    About four years ago I posted to the List a reference to a paper
by a group of archaeologists at one of Canada's national museums
(which now I can't find, of course), documenting the distribution of
pre-Columbian iron artifacts all across the ancient Eastern Arctic.
Analysis of the material used showed that most, but not all of them
came from the great Greenland irons (Cape York). Almost found it:
short report full of other referrences here:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1988Metic..23R.288M

    The age of the sites shows that the Greenland irons were being
used for tools as early as 1300-1200 BC and the tools from it were
spread out over 800 miles away from Cape York! Curiously,
this makes the Neolithic North's iron tools pretty much the same
age as first iron "tools" (weapons) in the "Cradle of Civilization"
(the Hittites), which raises some interesting questions about the
meaning of progress, innovation, and that "civilization" thing...

    Clearly, if iron meteorites from an ancient impact covered that
portion of Canada, they would have been used also. If an ancient
(33,000 BP) iron impactor had struck the ice cap and was the same
compositional type as Cape York, they could be in that material,
One of eleven ancient tools recently analyzed was from a different
meteorite than Cape York, so we know there was another source in
the extreme East Canadian Arctic (not Disko Island telluric iron
either).

    The terrestrial age of Cape York is not known. Buchwald only
says it is at least 2,000 years, but could be "10,000's of years."
We tend not to think of the giant Cape Yorks as mere cast-off
fragments of a bigger impact object, but they could be, of course.
If the giant meteorites were being used for tool material, obviously
all smaller pieces of the same material would have been used first,
before undertaking the effort of beating chunks off the giants. Not
an easy task.

    The distribution (or relative absence) of irons in NWA material
shows that there is no doubt that the NWA area was "cleaned out"
of most of the iron meteorites that could be found thousands of years
ago. Of course, they missed a few. But if the NWA meteorites
reflected the "normal" distribution of irons and stones, there would
be many, many more irons.

    Finding any Arctic Canada iron meteorites may be impossible,
if you consider that thousands of years of gathering by sharp-eyed
locals intimately familiar with the region may have worked the ground
first!


Sterling K. Webb
-------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "E.P. Grondine" <epgrondine at yahoo.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, December 24, 2007 12:32 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Mammoth Stew, Jason stops


Hi Jason, all -

Glad to hear you're done. That makes for a Merry
Christmas indeed! I and others will be working on
possible neutron flux from large hyper velocity
impacts over the next few days, and its nice to know
that you won't be distracting us with dribble.

Now as for your latest nonsense:

"But the fact of the matter is that you can't prove
"that either an airburst or ice-impact occurred
"without, in all likelihood, several years, if not
"decades of intense geological field studies, and this
"seems to be the point on which our methodologies
"differ.

Actually, Jason, the isotopic analysis of the IRON
PEPPER in the mammoth tusks itself is proof enough.
But the recovery of large iron meteorites from the
31,000 BCE iron impact by THE VERY SAME METEORITE
HUNTERS who use this list could prove the 31,000 BCE
impact to the MOST DENSE.

And that is one point where our methodologies do
differ.

good hunting all,
E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas




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Received on Mon 24 Dec 2007 06:12:55 PM PST