[meteorite-list] Marsden Canadian fall/first sedimentary meteorite??

From: ensoramanda <ensoramanda_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:17:16 +0000
Message-ID: <4934626C.5050708_at_ntlworld.com>

Hi All,

Looks like the Canadian meteorite might be the first sedimentary ever
found eh!!!! :-)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/My-pet-Rock-found-south-east-of-Lone-Rock-Saskatchewan_W0QQitemZ260324758120QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_2?hash=item260324758120&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1301%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

Graham Ensor UK

Rob Matson wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>One aspect of this new Canadian fall amuses me in particular. In
>the original report, we had quite a few "facts" about the bolide:
>
>
>
>>SASKATOON - A fireball that lit up the skies of Alberta and
>>Saskatchewan last Thursday evening was a chunk of low-flying
>>asteroid that weighed about 10 tonnes before it struck Earth's
>>atmosphere, according to a University of Calgary investigation.
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>University of Calgary researcher Alan Hildebrand has outlined a
>>region in western Saskatchewan where he expects to find desk-sized
>>fragments of the space rock.
>>
>>
>
>Of course, these first two paragraphs are quite inconsistent with
>each other -- a bolide that weighed only 10 tonnes *before* it hit
>the atmosphere would be the size of a SINGLE desk. That's prior to
>atmospheric ablation, which certainly would have reduced the mass
>by 70-90%. How do you find "desk-sized fragments" on the ground
>following ablation of a single desk-sized original object?
>
>
>
>>The fireball pierced the atmosphere at a steep angle of about
>>60 degrees off the horizontal and lasted about five seconds.
>>
>>
>
>The steep entry angle suggests catastrophic break-up into many
>pieces -- most of them small compared to the size of the original
>meteoroid. Obviously not desk-sized or even television-sized. Mind
>you, it's still an impressive fall. But I don't understand the
>need for hyperbole.
>
>How quickly people forget that we had an asteroid of KNOWN size
>(to within a factor of two) and orbit that entered over Sudan at
>a lower initial velocity and a much shallower angle, and yet
>"officials" poo-pooed that anything significant would reach the
>ground. This asteroid was at least 40 tons and quite possibly
>over 100 tons, had an orbit that intersected that of Mars
>(suggesting a possible SNC), and impacted in a location that
>would have been child's play to recover -- if it weren't for
>the minor matter of its landing in a third-world, genocidal
>disaster area of a country.
>
>I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the Sudan fall went
>off the radar almost immediately, yet was a far more substantial
>and scientifically important fall. But it seems not even meteorites
>are immune from sectionalism. -Rob
>
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Received on Mon 01 Dec 2008 05:17:16 PM PST