[meteorite-list] Carancas: Arsenic smell ?

From: cdtucson at cox.net <cdtucson_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:47:04 -0700
Message-ID: <20090319144704.M03QC.212315.imail_at_fed1rmwml33>

Michael,

This article you posted is dated Sept. 24th. We were there on the 18th and the smell was already gone. The locals described it to us as a sulfur smell more than Garlic but I don't think we asked about garlic so maybe it did smell of Garlic.

I do know that the water was boiling for several hours after the fall. Some suspect it was a chemical reaction with something but Carancas is filled with many mysteries that may never come to light.

This smelly water was in fact the main drinking source for all of the livestock in the area. In fact this Meteorite actually hit directly the human maintained natural spring they drank from. So, my question is this; If this water was contaminated how then was it the main drinking sour se for the area? Would the arsenic not have effected the people and animals that drank from it? Again, This is but one of dozens of mysteries yet to be fully answered. This material has been shown to have a very odd cosmochemistry. So much so that scientists are unwilling to publish the results. It has been described as inexplicable.
This was largely a farming community not a mining one but was on land that was once a part of lake Titicaca,

Maybe you can figure this out. Thanks

Carl Esparza

IMCA 5829

Meteoritemax


---- Michael Bross <element33 at peconic.net> wrote:
> Hi List
>
> I am coming like "hair in the soup"... about Carancas, seeing the just
> recent exchanges :)
> but following the post about Staten Island today I did some search on
> NYTimes website
>
> and got to this article from 2007 in the first 10 hits:
> (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/perus-meteor-illness-explained-invitation-extended/?scp=2&sq=meteorite&st=cse)
>
> Was the Arsenic theory ever proven ?
> Did anybody from the List, on site at the time, remember a "like garlic"
> smell, which is typical for
> most of arsenic forms ? (Although, some forms or in small quantities would
> not yield a strong garlic smell)
>
> If not, any further studies and lab test about that smell ?
>
> Peru has been the place for a lot of mining waste recycling from US and
> elsewhere.
> Copper, gold, silver ores can contain quite some Arsenic (in Philippines up
> to 14% !)
> I remember also Tacoma, Washington, where we got to the "arsenic kitchen"
> site from an
> old smelter place (beginning 20th century)... the underground soil smelt
> like a huge pot of cooked garlic :)
>
> I know... it is not the main interest on this list.
> But having been quite active in arsenic cleaning in soils and groundwater...
> I enjoy seeing
> this Carancas story including probable (?) arsenic release
>
> A bientot
> Michael B, France
>
>
>
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Received on Thu 19 Mar 2009 02:47:04 PM PDT