[meteorite-list] Nogata Meteorite

From: MexicoDoug <MexicoDoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 01:28:52 -0600
Message-ID: <010101c732f6$a8791680$84cc5ec8_at_0019110394>

Hello Michael. Nogotta meteorite :-)? If you are writing a book, may I
suggest...

For a good look at the stone, Check Figure 1 (page 90, see online link
below) of the 1983 paper on the Nogata chondrite or better yet, contact the
authors, for a nice picture of the "low iron" L6 meteorite which appears to
be oriented (and is triangular shaped). While this aptly historically
called "Flying Stone" was purported to be a hammer hitting the Butoku Jinja
Temple Shrine, I would doubt that somewhat as it seems more likely that the
472 gram meteorite was lifted out of a small hole made in the ground by
villagers, not priests, and not scraped off the side the (stone - or rice
paper?) Shrine building. Perhaps the purported hammer was a different stone
from the same fall, though multiple pieces are apparently not mentioned. No
reverence whatsoever is mentioned, just that it was kept as a treasure, and
the sonic booms and light phenomena were apparently nicely recorded in the
almost ancient documentation.

Shima, M. et. al., "Description, Chemical Composition and Noble Gases of the
Chondrite Nogata", Meteoritics, Vol. 18, 30 June 1983, p. 87-102.

The authors received a sample of the treasure from the kind Shinto priest M.
Iwakuma of the now renamed Suga Jinja Shrine where it was "kept as a
treasure" for 1,120 years. In 1983 they lamented about the impossibility of
asking for more than 20 g to do some better MS compositional analysis with
the tools of the time, given the status of it being a treasure for over a
thousand years, kept in a wooden box, which incidentally was carbon dated
rather than analyzing the meteorite itself, due to lack of material. The
carbon dating was inconclusive though supported it to be ball-parked around
500 years older than the meteorite. The fall date was corroborated with at
least two historical records, though. The writing on the box giving the
fall year was of a later style script.

A complete copy of the paper for poor, impatient and underprivileged people
(low resolution terrible contrast photo) is available at:
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/gif/1983Metic..18...87S/0000090.000.
html

But I am sure you California/Arizona folks have hard, crisp copies coming
out of the woodwork in the UCSD library, etc.!

Best wishes,
Doug

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael L Blood" <mlblood at cox.net>
To: <peterscherff at rcn.com>; "Meteorite List"
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 07, 2007 8:00 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Nogata Meteorite


> Hi Peter,
> The only image I have seen of it was in a video about meteorites.
> For those in the peanut gallery, it is the stone that fell May 19, 861ad.
> in Nogata, Japan, crashing through the roof of a monastery of Buddhist
> monks. It is the oldest documented hammer I know of. I believe not one
> single mg has ever been made available to any one or any institution. It
> is highly revered by the monks, supposedly because it is considered to
> have fallen from heaven. (Such reported beliefs are often ethnocentrically
> biased and/or involve misinterpretations in translation - so, who can say
> how/what the monks REALLY think of it) - in any event, it is highly
> regarded and absolutely none of the material has ever been available).
> In the video, a monk brought out the box in which it is kept and
> the video was quite clear, as the interviewer and the monk were outside
> in the courtyard. It was larger than a golf ball but smaller than a
> baseball.
> If you do discover a still photo of it, I would much appreciate if
> you let me know of it, as I am working on a book about hammers. Right
> now all I have depictions of are mostly the 40 or 45 I have for sale. As
> rare as some of them are, I would say Nogata takes the cake, as it is
> TOTALLY unavailable.
> Good luck, Michael
>
> on 1/7/07 5:10 PM, peterscherff at rcn.com at peterscherff at rcn.com wrote:
>
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I hope someone can help me. I am looking for a photo of the Nogata
> > Meteorite that I can use in a powerpoint presentation.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Peter Scherff
> > ______________________________________________
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Received on Mon 08 Jan 2007 02:28:52 AM PST