[meteorite-list] First report of a New Fall!

[Adam Hupe]

Dear List Members, We Would like to introduce a new fall. New meteorite Thuathe, Lesotho fell on July 21, 2002 Incredibly this meteorite fell on the same day as Kilabo. About 27 kilograms is projected to be the Total Known Weight with about 19 kilograms recovered so far. Stones varying in size from 2 grams up to the main mass weight of 2,387 grams have been recovered. It was reported to the Meteoritical Society and the official name of Thuathe has been assigned. It is an H4 ordinary chondrite with a not so ordinary story. We will report more eye witness accounts as they come in. Malineo Mantsoe of IIa Sofonia describes her experience: When the loud noise occurred overhead, she ran to the back of her dwelling expecting to see a thunderstorm, but there was none. She came to the front, just in time to hear wheeee-bang as a stone fell into her cooking area just in front of her, cracking one of her water carriers. No villager could have thrown a stone so fast in daylight, and it must have been a truly powerful thokolost to have done such a thing in broad daylight! Fortunately she was prepared for such occasions, because she had a supply of holy water blessed in church. She sprinkled it on the stone and elsewhere around her cooking area and house, and it worked! No more stones fell. In other villages the locals were disgusted that black stones were falling out of the sky because one almost hit somebody in Ha Motloang. They picked up the stones and threw them as far away as they could to get them out of their villages. Once they overcame their superstitions regarding this meteorite and realized they were worth something, hundreds began to search for them. What you see here is the first batch to reach the civilized world. We are expecting the bulk of the fall, another 12 kilograms to reach us this week. The well-defined strewn field has been scoured for months now so we expect only another 2 to 4 kilograms will show up after this. After one of our partners, thinking that all the material had been recovered (not possible) spoke about this fall in Tucson the word was out. Now a three-person team arrived yesterday from Tucson and is asking about the stones. Now there is a race on to see who can recover the most of this new fall. Good luck to the other teams and may we all win! The samples pictured below are priced as follows: 10-50 grams $7.50 per gram 51-200 grams $7.00 per gram 201-500 grams $6.50 per gram over 500 grams $6.00 per gram Her is a link to available specimens: http://www.lunarrock.com/thuathe/thuathe.jpg Please email us and let us know if any of these are of interest. All the best, Adam and Greg Hupe The Hupe Collection IMCA 2185