[meteorite-list] Kenya Fall & Hammers

From: Jim Wooddell <nf114ec_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 14:48:13 -0700
Message-ID: <DE420A9866FC40A2BAF92454C2DEE5DF_at_Grande>

This is from Mike...

Trying to get this to the meteorite list but tried more than 30 hours ago
with no response from Art.

This email is premature due to circumstances out of my control sadly.

I am announcing the recovery of over 11.7 kilograms of the new Kenya
meteorite fall from 16 July, 2011.

I saw the news of the fall on 17 July, and purchased a ticket to Kenya about
4 hours later. I arrived in Kenya on 20 July, and on the morning of 21
July, less than 125 hours after the fall, I had more than a kilo in hand.
Upon arriving at the fall location, I met a guy who knew a girl who saw a
stone land only 5 feet from her in a coffee field while working at ~10:30 am
when the explosions rocked the sky. It was cloudy at the fall site so no one
saw anything, just heard massive explosions and then loud whistling and
sounds that most described as gunfire.

Moments after buying that stone, I went to another house of a boy who found
a 777 gram stone in a coffee field about 30 minutes after the fall.

I stayed 9 days in Kenya, purchasing 10.5 kilos of stones, including the as
of now main mass of 3.5 kg. The first stone that was reported on the news
weighs less than 2.5 kg, not 5 kg reported.

Most interesting about this fall is that it also has 3 seperate
hammerstones!

First is a househitter that smashed through a metal house roof. I paid to
have the rooftop cut out and purchased several fragments of the meteorite,
including more on this trip.

Second was a stone that weighed more than 350 grams which went through the
roof of a greenhouse, and was witnessed by a man working there, it smashed
into a metal growing table and exploded into hundreds of pieces. I have all
of that one and the plastic hole where it was cut out to be patched.

 Third is another greenhouse smasher from the same complex, found only 3
days ago by workers moving plants out. It broke into several pieces
virtually all of which Greg Hupe and I recovered. It has been subjected to
high humidity for a month.


I have built a strewnfield map of all but 3 pieces, with exact locations.

I returned almost two weeks ago for round two with Greg Hupe. We were able
to purchase only an additional 6 stones totalling 1150 grams.

This fall is not thick, despite intense searching by hundreds of people who
need the money very badly, they have found little.

We hired 25 workers for the last two weeks, working from 8 am to 6 pm
scouring the bushland, cornfields, banana plantations, and coffee fields,
without a single recovery from them. I hunted and walked a great many miles
myself with no finds. This was a large fall but seems to be very spread out
and large areas are either not huntable or are under heavy cultivation as
harvest and tilling is going on now.

I have already sold several large pieces of this meteorite, I will have some
for sale, but less than 1 kg.

I will be building a page about it in the next 48 hours as I am in London
now, on my way home. It is already in the lab under study, thin sections on
the way and from my own observations I think this meteorite will likely be
an L4 or 5.

It has no brecciation or veining other than what I suspect are some metal
veins seen from the outside, have cut nothing.

Expect to hear more from me as soon as I get rested up and get my site
ready.

There will be little of this available, mostly small fragments, I may have
one or two larger stones available, 279~ g and 313~ gram 100% complete, but
not cheap!

Expenses were more than $1000 per day not including airfare. Nobody works
for free in Kenya, to get them to move, money had to come out.

In their own words " I need to be properly motivated". Heard that exact
phrase more than once.

Michael Farmer










----- Original Message -----
From: "Meteorite Mania!" <meteoritemania at gmail.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 2:04 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Kenya Fall & Hammers


> Where is all the talk about the newly recovered Kenya fall with
> multiple hammers?
>
> The list should be on fire right now...and where are the pictures?
> We're itching to see fresh crust.
>
> Well done Michael, keep up the good work.
>
> Ty
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Received on Tue 23 Aug 2011 05:48:13 PM PDT