[meteorite-list] Nogata Meteorite

From: Bill <glixard_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 23:49:43 -0800
Message-ID: <0CDA3A31EDC.00000CE6glixard_at_inbox.com>

This meteorite could be the subject of all kinds of fantasy books. Seemingly stoic monks stash a rock contrary to their beliefs. Ninth century act of passion? Call the monks!

Bill



> -----Original Message-----
> From: mexicodoug at aim.com
> Sent: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 01:28:52 -0600
> To: mlblood at cox.net, peterscherff at rcn.com,
> meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Nogata Meteorite
>
> 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
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> Meteorite-list mailing list
>>> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>>
>> --
>> It is difficult to get a man to understand something if his
>> salary depends on him not understanding it.
>> - Upton Sinclair
>> --
>> What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know.
>> It is what we know for sure that just ain't so.
>> - Josh Billings (but oft credited to Mark Twain)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
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Received on Mon 08 Jan 2007 02:49:43 AM PST