[meteorite-list] Pojoaque Pallisite

From: Michael Gilmer <meteoritemike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:01:10 -0400
Message-ID: <CAKBPJW8T=j8B=mbDTpMfmL7n_RtH6No=3CNO9tTJZygbeR1_mw_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hi Doug and List,

Your comments about the 61kg Camp Verde iron call to mind a similar
thought I had about the Bonita Springs chondrite. Bonita Springs is a
42kg stone, and the current consensus is that the stone was
transported to it's eventual place of discovery in a pre-Calusa mound
in southern Florida.

I would argue against Bonita Springs being transported a great
distance for two reasons :

1) the pre-Calusa Indians of Florida were very war-like and did not
engage in trade with tribes from outside the region.

2) the weight of the stone seems (to me) to be too heavy to transport
great distances during a period prior to the introduction of horses to
North America by the Europeans. I just cannot imagine an Indian
carrying around this ~100 pound rock for any extended period of time -
unless it was witnessed to fall. Unlike a pallasite that has olivine
crystals visible on the outer surface, a typical stone chondrite would
not inspire worship as an other-wordly object - unless it was seen to
fall.

On the basis of those two points, I would argue that Bonita Springs is
a fall local to the general area where it was eventually found, or at
the very least from somewhere within the domain of the tribe who
buried it.

Given that ~100 pound chondrites rarely fall alone, it is not unlikely
that a lost strewnfield of H5 chondrites exists somewhere in Florida.

Whatever the case, I am greatly interested in the Indian folklore of
meteorites and would be keen to hear the thoughts of others on my
"hypothesis" regarding Bonita Springs.

Best regards,

MikeG

PS - my posts are not appearing on the List (I'm being moderated
perhaps?), so if Doug or someone else could please forward this to the
List, it would be appreciated.

-- 
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On 4/30/12, MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com> wrote:
> Interesting though these are likely three different types of human
> weathering (wearing).
>
> w1: Here's a nice picture of the Canyon Diablo (Camp Verde iron) piece
> in which listmembers can appreciate these comments regarding possible
> handling (rubbing, perhaps along these line suggested something similar
> to a tradition of receiving sacrament (Eucharist (sp?)) some Mexican
> Catholic churches when a transmuted plaster-Jesus is kissed by nearly
> everyone attending lined up single file - causing wear).
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=xCGpmoJl2dgC&pg=PA118
>
> w2: The perceptions of "wear " on an ancient, recovered find are of a
> different nature than one with fresh fusion crust and flowlines plus,
> over the stony olivine crystals of the Glorieta Mountain (Pojoaque
> iron) piece what was claimed to be a thick, possible fresh fusion
> crust.  But as you say they could show different sorts of handling, in
> a case of a 61 kilos Camp Verde, not likely to have been carried about!
>
>
> w3: As for Anoka (Havana beads), as well as the Egyptian stuff, that's
> a different type of forming and "wearing" than Pojoaque and Camp Verde
> - the work in the literature and a poster on the Smithsonian website a
> few years ago pairing some of those to the Anoka meteorite suggests
> that the Smithsonian/UCLA/Iowa has access to two of the mentioned beads.
>
> "We conducted optical microscopy, SEM ele-mental and phase mapping,
> electron microprobe analy-ses, LA-ICP-MS and INAA analyses of Havana
> and Anoka for comparison."
>
> ref:
> http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2008/pdf/1984.pdf
>
>
> kindest wishes
> Doug
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Regine P. <fips_bruno at yahoo.de>
> To: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com>; Meteorite-list
> <Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Mon, Apr 30, 2012 2:00 am
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Pojoaque Pallisite
>
>
> Camp Verde comes to mind, of which one side, "the backbone" as Laurence
> Garvie
> calls it, seems to have been rubbed smooth. But taken its weight it
> could hardly
> have been carried around by a medicine man. Since I have first seen it
> I have
> always imagined someone taking it for its deceased child which has
> fallen back
>  from the sky. It has a head, shoulders and a spine. Just a trifle heavy
> perhaps.
>
>
>
> ----- Urspr?ngliche Message -----
>> Von: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com>
>> An: fips_bruno at yahoo.de; Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>> CC:
>> Gesendet: 1:57 Montag, 30.April 2012
>> Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Pojoaque Pallisite
>>
>>& quot; the meteorite had been carried in a medicine bag? It doesn't
> sound
>> implausible, but what are the clues?"
>>
>> Hi, Regine, Carleton, Mike, Bernd, Jeff, David, Listers;
>>
>> I would like to draw some attention to the "carried in a medicine
>> pouch" since Regine asked ;-)
>>
>> These guys are all with the Great Spirit now, who did the
> excavations, so
>> we're stuck analyzing something that was contermplated in the 1920's
>> with the baggage of nearly an intervening century.
>>
>> It is quite possible, like many things, that this medicine pouch
> comment is a
>> comment run amok as usual with meteorites, someone says something,
> then it
> takes
>> on a life of its own due to tales getting taller,even among
> conservative
>> scientists, unintentionally, of course, everyone just takes away a
> different
>> idea and they follow natural 'election'.
>>
>> The original comment seems to be that it was carried as "medicine",
>> rather than in a medicine pouch.  While this seems to be a minor
> difference,
>> it's not.  One involves an inference and the other is more of an
>> observation.
>>
>> Nininger later (1952) expounds on the comment when discussing Native
> American
>> meteorite collectors and the medicine pounch has by then become alive
> in its
>> own, through no one's fault.
>>
>> The concept of "medicine" doesn't necessarily require a pouch, and
>> may not even be in the hands of a medicine man, why, it just as well
> could
> have
>> been a chief, or a brave warrior ... and could just as well be from a
> great
> deal
>> of handling.  The observation was simply that at least three of the
>> protuberances above the regmaglypts depressions were highly worn from
> what was
>
>> very plausibly a soft material.  To make the leap to call it a pouch,
> or just
> a
>> lot of hands ... is a good philosophical theme for a room full of
> meteorite
>> collectors and archeaologists without Regine's magic powder burns
> evidence.
>> But the fact was, the wear was supposedly caused from a lot of
> handling or
>> rubbing.  That said, ablation is a strange master and it would be
> verrrrry
>> interesting to revisit this "wear" which formed the basis of the
>> original archaeological comments.
>>
>> What is for sure, apparently is that it was found inside the pottery
> and that
> in
>> turn in a burial ground.  So there are some Spirits floating around
> it.
> Perhaps
>> Man & Impact Ed has a theory, it's his ballywick.  But we do need to
> see
>> it.  Carleton kindly mentions that a couple of grams were at ASU,
> that makes
>> sense that Nininger would take some.  My fear is that calling this
> pivotal
> iron
>> "just" another synonym does no good to science if it is lost for
>> inspection.  Apparently the piece weighed originally 3 ounces (about
> 85 g),
> and
>> it was a complete individual subject to what was speculated to be a
> violent
>> history, that is, after Nininger figured out how Glorieta ripped
> apart along
> of
>> course with Kunz.
>>
>> But not only is the mystery with the original piece, this piece is
> historical
> in
>> that it was the first specimen that was used as a keystone to pair a
> pallasite
>
>> fall to a siderite fall ... and help create the need to have a single
> name
> with
>> synonyms ... how ironic, errr... palladoxical ;-)
>>
>> Kindest wishes
>> Doug
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Regine P. <fips_bruno at yahoo.de>
>> To: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com>; bernd.pauli
>> <bernd.pauli at paulinet.de>; meteorite-list
>> <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
>> Sent: Sun, Apr 29, 2012 7:04 pm
>> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Pojoaque Pallisite
>>
>>
>> Hi Doug, Bernd and all,
>>
>> I too would like to know where this one is being kept. What baffles
> me though,
>> how does one get to the conclusion the meteorite had been carried in
> a
> medicine
>> bag? It doesn't sound implausible, but what are the clues? Magic
> powder
>> topping?
>> Is there any further info?
>>
>>
>> Regine
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Urspr?ngliche Message -----
>>>  Von: MexicoDoug <mexicodoug at aim.com>
>>>  An: bernd.pauli at paulinet.de; meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>>>  CC:
>>>  Gesendet: 23:54 Sonntag, 29.April 2012
>>>  Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Pojoaque Pallisite
>>>
>>>  Hi Listers,
>>>
>>>  Paired - quite likely - It has a much more interesting history than
>> to be
>> lumped
>>>  as a synonym and IMO value as a named iron in its own right:
>>>
>>>  This particular iron showed a lot of evidence of wear from human
>> handling and
>>>  Nininger supported Mera's suggestion that it was carried in a
>> medicine pouch
>>>  in Pojoaque, which makes a triangle geographically, roughly, with
>> Santa Fe,
>>>  Glorieta, Mountain locality and Pojoaque pueble.  According to the
>> circumstances
>>>  of the fine, it was found inside some old pottery during
> excavations
>> at the
>>>  Pueblo, i.e., protected, and exhibited beautiful flow lines and
>> notable bluish
>>
>>>  fresh fusion crust, indicating it was a reasonable possibility that
>> whoever
>>>  found it saw it fall.  As it was found during excavations, it
> raises
>> the
>>>  possibility of using this to date the Glorieta Mountain fall.
>>>
>>>  It would be nice to know where this meteorite is now.  Did it make
> it
>> to New
>>>  Mexico's collection?  Nininger, in 1931, saw it in Santa Fe,
>> specifically in
>>>  the "Department of Anthropology", where Mera may have been
>> working.
>>>  But someone else needs to sleuth a bit further from here because I
>> sure
>>>  don't know where it is now, and it would be great to see it in its
>> present
>>>  condition ;-), as it was cut up a bit because Nininger and others
>> used it to
>>>  argue that Glorieta Mountain wasn't a siderite, but a
>> sidero-pallasite
>>>  combination as well as consolidate some of the names Bernd lists
> ...
>> I think
>> the
>>>  paper was 1940.
>>>
>>>  Definitely a specimen with a very special, if not sacred, history
> ...
>>>
>>>  Kindest wishes
>>>  Doug
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>  -----Original Message-----
>>>  From: Bernd V. Pauli <bernd.pauli at paulinet.de>
>>>  To: meteorite-list <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
>>>  Sent: Sun, Apr 29, 2012 5:03 pm
>>>  Subject: [meteorite-list] Pojoaque Pallisite
>>>
>>>
>>>  Hello Jeff, Mike, David and List,
>>>
>>>  David wrote: "It is indeed the synonym for Glorieta"
>>>
>>>  ... and only one out of several others:
>>>
>>>  Albuquerque
>>>  Canoncito
>>>  Glorieta
>>>  Pojoaque
>>>  Rio Arriba
>>>  Santa Fe
>>>  Santa Fe County
>>>  Trinity County
>>>
>>>  Cheers,
>>>
>>>  Bernd
>>>
>>>
>>>  ______________________________________________
>>>
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>> http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
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>>
>
>
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Received on Mon 30 Apr 2012 11:01:10 AM PDT