[meteorite-list] INTERVIEW WITH CARANCAS LOCALS

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 00:50:21 -0500
Message-ID: <0cfa01c81213$f06245f0$b92ee146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi,

    A 10-ton (2 meter sphere) object impacting at 2 km/s
produces the equivalent of 4.78 tons of TNT. The seismic
measurement in Peru by the IGP was 4.9 tons of TNT.

    It would seem to me that a "parent object" big enough
to cough up a ten-ton hairball might have left other chunks
scattered about the Altiplano. They can't all have gone into
the Lake.

    I still have trouble with the notion that 20,000 pounds
of meteorite survives in the crater. On the other hand, if
the impact spread all of the 20,000 pounds out over the
full reported area of the ejecta blanket, it works out to 8
milligrams (0.008 grams) of dust per square centimeter,
an amount so tiny you'd hardly notice it, except near the
rim, where people did notice and collect it.

    Is it a "clever" meteorite, hiding in plain sight?


Sterling K. Webb
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Peterson" <clp at alumni.caltech.edu>
To: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 12:08 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] INTERVIEW WITH CARANCAS LOCALS


Interesting. This supports my belief that this was a relatively low
energy impact- a 2 meter object traveling at 1-2 km/s, not ablating. A
larger parent exploded in the air, contributing to or fully producing
the measured infrasound and seismic signal. A fragment survived and
produced the crater. The parent body protected that fragment, just as
the Sikhote-Alin fragments were protected by being part of a much larger
body until the last few seconds. I expect the estimate of the explosion
being 1km from the witness is on the short side; several kilometers is
more likely, and there's little doubt that most people are totally
incapable of accurately judging the distance to an event like this.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
To: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2007 9:35 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] INTERVIEW WITH CARANCAS LOCALS


> Hi, All,
>
> I've found a Spanish document of an interview with
> an inhabitant of Carancas, in particular their local leader.
> He was interviewed in his native language, Aymara, by
> a native Aymara speaker who has translated the interview
> into Spanish...

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Received on Fri 19 Oct 2007 01:50:21 AM PDT