[meteorite-list] Wanted : Micros of the following meteorites

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:12:59 -0500
Message-ID: <32A8541D7D024DE1A9887C561716E049_at_ATARIENGINE2>

Hi, Anne, Mike, List,

    Yes, I forgot PARK FOREST. I was searching
using the CD database that came with the Grady
edition of the Catalogue, which ends in 2000, and
which doesn't have Park Forest. It was a glaring
omission, as several members who were there
reminded me Off-List: "one of the great falls of the
century." So far --- it's a new century. (I always
hope for something more Armageddon-ish...)

    Just a slight case of Myopic Brain Failure.

    Or maybe the Catalogue ends in 1998 or 1999,
because neither the CD nor the book contain SAINT
AUGUSTINE: "A 22 kg (49 lb) iron meteorite and
a second mass that was subsequently lost were
found by Wayne Berry while he was digging fence-
post holes. The meteorite was recognized in 1999
by Allen Shaw. Classification and description
(J. Wasson, UCLA): bulk metal composition,
Co = 0.67 wt%, Ni = 9.84 wt%, Ga = 75.4 ppm,
As = 4.66 ppm, Ir = 19.4 ppm, Au = 0.608 ppm.
Specimens: main mass, AShaw; type specimen,
66 g, UCLA."

    There are photos of all nine Illinois meteorites
here at a SkyRock Cafe page:
http://illinoismeteorites.com/About%20IL%20Meteorites.htm
    I've never seen pictures of Saint Augustine before.
The reason you've never seen a "fragment" of TOULON
is that it is a "puzzle stone," five individual fragments
that fit together to compose a partially complete mass.
Just the same, there are seven museums with chunks
of their very own.

    Although the 2000 Catalogue accepts SOUTH
DIXON, the MetBul 55 (1978) says: "Physical
examination and microprobe data prove South Dixon
to be gabbroic and of terrestrial, not meteoritic,
origin," by Sipiera, Lewis, & Moore, ASU, Tempe.
I can't find their paper, just the note in the MetBul
55. I'd like more detail; a meteorite cannot be
gabbroic? The original identification of South Dixon
as a meteorite in 1947 was made by Ben Hur Wilson.
Despite the funny name, he was a good observer and
very thorough.

    Wilson was the first scientific observer on the scene
of the Benld fall, getting there on October 22, 1938. Here
is his incredibly informative account, written right after
the fall:
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1938PA.....46..548W/0000558.000.html

    It contains every conceivable detail: the lot number
of McCain's house, measurements of the fall angle
using a transit (a vertical elevation of 77 degrees and
31 minutes), and so on. Someone said the car was a
1937 Pontiac? No, actually it was a 1928 Pontiac Coupe,
Factory No. 31164628, Eng. No. P349032. Ten years
old, it had just had the cloth top replaced before the
meteorite went straight through it, and into the righthand
front seat, becoming entangled with the springs, which
did not stop it from breaking the floorboard and denting
the muffler before the springs pulled it back up inside
the car seat!

    McCain did not discover the hole in his car seat until
he came home from work at 3 o'clock; he thought it was
rats. His neighbor, Mr. Crum (whose wife had heard but
not seen the strike), said, "Ed, no rats ever made that
hole." It was he who noticed the hole in the car roof
and found the stone inside the car seat and removed
it by snipping the spring wires that held the stone.

    The stone had one chip missing, but the fragment could
not be found in the garage. The evening of the fall a corner
of the stone was broken off by a local doctor with a pair of
pliers, "to find out what it's made of"! Everyone knew it was
a meteorite immediately, the neighbor, Mrs. Crum being
the first to exclaim, "It must be a meteorite! What else could
it be?"

    This link:
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1938PA.....46..548W&defaultprint=YES&filetype=.pdf
should pull up the entire article in printable and savable
form if you have a PDF plugin in your browser.

    I wonder who got the corner the doctor broke off?

    It's a great read.



Sterling K. Webb
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: <Impactika at aol.com>
To: <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>; <meteoritemike at gmail.com>
Cc: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 8:37 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Wanted : Micros of the following
meteorites


> Hello,
>
> I truly hate to disagree with you, Sterling. But it happens so
> rarely.
>
> I find 9 meteorites listed for Illinois.
>
> First: South-Dixon is now listed as a Pseudo-meteorite.
> Then, I do agree with the next 4 you have listed: Bendl, Bloomington,
> Havana and Marengo.
>
> I also find 3 older ones: Tilden, Toulon, Woodbine. All very rare. Has
> anyone ever seen a crumb of Toulon????
>
> And then, there are 2 more recent ones:Saint Augustine (Iron IID,
> found in
> 1974 in Knox county, 2 masses, 22.2kilos) and of course Park Forest,
> the
> only Illinois meteorite you can obtain quite easily.
>
> Information from M. Grady "Catalogue of Meteorites", Fifth Edition,
> and
> "Meteorites from a to Z" Third Edition.
>
> Anne M. Black
> _http://www.impactika.com/_ (http://www.impactika.com/)
> _IMPACTIKA at aol.com_ (mailto:IMPACTIKA at aol.com)
> Vice-President, I.M.C.A. Inc.
> _http://www.imca.cc/_ (http://www.imca.cc/)
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> In a message dated 4/14/2009 7:10:46 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
> sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net writes:
> Hi, Mike,
>
> For 20 years, I lived in and owned a business in
> Bunker Hill, IL, just 9 miles down the road from
> Benld. The Benld stone is the first authenticated
> to have struck an automobile (even if it was in the
> garage at the time), and it's one of the handful of
> Illinois meteorites. Illinois -- all that flat land and
> only eight lousy Illinois meteorites. Why is that?
>
> One of them is an iron bead found in a burial
> mound (Havana). One of has never been seen
> since it was first described; we know only the
> year of the fall in a town name that doesn't exist.
> The meteorite was real, though (South Dixon).
>
> That leaves six, several of which are very small:
> Marengo, a 68 gram stone in the Dupont Collection,
> and Bloomington, a 67.3 gram stone divided between
> the Field and the planetarium in Rock Island. That
> leaves four Illinois meteorites you could theoretically
> collect a piece of. The chances are mostly theoretical,
> though.
>
> I've been to Benld several times to investigate
> the possibility of finding another stone. I've located
> the neighborhood where it fell to a two-block accuracy,
> but it was built up to flat land in the 1930's with
> fill dirt over uneven land that had been the site of
> an iron foundry.
>
> Even worse, the fill was unconsolidated, and any
> stone falling fast enough to penetrate a Ford would
> have buried itself 6 feet or more into the Earth if it
> had hit the ground. That soil is full of rusty iron
> scrap, so you can leave your metal detector at home!
>
> The area south of the fall site is both rocky and
> swampy with multiple streams and creeks. Most
> unpromising ground for a meteorite hunt imaginable.
> Nevertheless, I walked around for a few days looking
> for a 60-year-old H5. (If you don't look...)
>
> The collection data I cited is from the 2000
> edition of the NHM (UK) "Catalogue of Meteorites."
> Possibly a little out-of-date, if there has been
> trading since, but I can't imagine the Field giving
> anybody the tiniest piece of Benld.
>
>
> Sterling K. Webb
>
> **************Access 350+ FREE radio stations anytime from anywhere on
> the
> web. Get the Radio Toolbar!
> (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolradio/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000002)
Received on Wed 15 Apr 2009 01:12:59 AM PDT