[meteorite-list] intriguing Question

From: Jason Utas <meteoritekid_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:00:02 -0800
Message-ID: <93aaac890801101300w2963fbf7ye3e74ea83bf0818c_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hola Peter, All,
I know individual aspect of your questions have been addressed, but
I'd like to as well...

>I know the Sahara desert is about a galgillion square miles.
Then there are the deserts in Calif., South America, the Antarctic continent
and God only knows where else. Why don't I see any meteorites from the
Gobi desert, or maybe the Mongolia desert.

Well, yeah, it's big. But the main reason that there are more
meteorites found in the Sahara than elsewhere is because there are
more people looking. There are just as many martian and lunar
meteorites elsewhere, but they tend to be harder to recognize due to
harder hunting terrain (similar rocks, etc) - and because there are
probably twenty or so meteorite hunters in the southwest who get out
into the wilderness with some frequency - probably a few more, since
Franconia became popular. Compared to the undefined number of hunters
who have been scouring the Sahara for the past decade, well, it's just
not much of a comparison.
Same goes for South America, though Antarctica has seen a good deal of
thorough hunting, as results would suggest.

>And then there is little dinky Roosevelt Co, NM at just 2,455 sq
miles and it has a
staggering
109 meteorites, which comes to one for every 22.5 sq miles. What gives?

This is due to, as has been said, the hunting of Skip Wilson, who has
spent years in the area, hunting blowout after blowout with remarkable
success. A good bit of hunting land paired with his diligence has
turned up pretty spectacular results...
That said, the density of meteorites that actually exist on the land
should be, at the very least, several per square mile; yes, many have
been found, but there are still countless more waiting to be
discovered.

>They are of a wide variety of classifications, so it can't be turning
every piece in
for classification. I can't speak for anyone else, but I find this
very puzzling.

I don't see why he couldn't be turning every stone in for
classification; data gathered suggest that smaller falls would be more
common than larger ones, and this would mean that the majority of
falls would consist of small, individual stones.

I also don't know how many of his finds have been paired with one
another, but I have the feeling that if he has been concentrating on
individual areas (as opposed to moving on whenever he finds a
meteorite), it would stand to reason that he has found at least a few
paired meteorites, whether or not they are listed as such in the
catalogue.

Regards,
Jason

On Jan 9, 2008 7:01 PM, Peter A Shugar <pshugar at clearwire.net> wrote:
> Hello,
> I'm the newbie, so please explain this to me. This is an intriguing question.
> I can't figure it out. I know the Sahara desert is about a galgillion square miles.
> Then there are the deserts in Calif., South America, the Antarctic continent
> and God only knows where else. Why don't I see any meteorites from the
> Gobi desert, or maybe the Mongolia desert.
> And then there is little dinky Roosevelt Co, NM at just 2,455 sq miles and it has a
> staggering
> 109 meteorites, which comes to one for every 22.5 sq miles. What gives?
> They are of a wide variety of classifications, so it can't be turning every piece in
> for classification. I can't speak for anyone else, but I find this very puzzling.
> Any thoughts, List?
> Pete
>
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Received on Thu 10 Jan 2008 04:00:02 PM PST