Rather quietly and "behind the scenes", there has been a lot of work
developing the use of weather radar to detect meteorites, by Rob Matson,
Jake Schaefer, myself, my brother, and others. It's been a tall
learning curve but I think we've made a lot of progress. In my opinion,
the biggest "unknown" left at this point is to figure out what size of
meteorites and/or other debris actually show up best in radar data. The
radar reflections we see are not only reflections off of solid objects
but also from atmospheric turbulence. And we also have to unravel the
knot of reflections in the Mie scattering regime, where the reflected
signal strength varies widely - and nonlinearly - with the size of the
reflector. The upshot is that we are still working on sorting out what
radar reflection equates to what size of meteorite. If we see a radar
reflection, is it from search-worthy stones or just a cloud of ~1g
rocks, or even ablation spherules? A good part of that is just a matter
of timing, but not all of it. Lorton, for example, produced a strong
radar signature in TDWR radar data but nothing was found beyond the
original doctors'-office-smasher, suggesting that we were looking at a
swarm of tiny rocks....? The same is true for the Jacksonville, IL event.
This DFW fireball appears to come from a well-consolidated object that
survived a long "burn" time with little in the way of fragmentation.
West, TX, by comparison, fragmented extensively and produced a
beautiful, easy to follow set of radar signatures. My take on the DFW
fireball is that we're looking for a small number of large rocks that
reached the ground quickly, producing a short-lived radar signature that
requires some degree of luck to figure out. ...or are we looking at 1g
stones that no one is going to find? Just having that answer in hand
will tell us a lot about where to look.
Still working on it...
Cheers,
Marc Fries
On 2/7/12 8:46 AM, Steve Dunklee wrote:
The radar data is not off. It is just not understood by most people how the
parabola of a fall can cause the actual landing area to be up to 12 miles away
from the radar data. If you stick a french curve in an apple to represent the
west to east fall. the termination point is north to northwest of the radar
data.
Cheers
Steve Dunklee
--- On Tue, 2/7/12, Jim Wooddell<[email protected]> wrote:
From: Jim Wooddell<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] 2nd Report from Strewnfield in Edgewood Texas
To: "Dennis Miller"<[email protected]>, [email protected],
[email protected]
Date: Tuesday, February 7, 2012, 4:29 PM
Hi All!
I thought it was determined the Radar data was off???
And, it really is not a strewn filed until one is actually
found!
Cheers!
Jim
Jim Wooddell
http://k7wfr.us
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis Miller"<[email protected]>
To:<[email protected]>;
<[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2012 8:55 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] 2nd Report from Strewnfield in
Edgewood Texas
Nice! I am so glad you didn't set the public price too
high, like
Thousands
for Ash Creek. :-) I do hope you are successful in your
hunt. Keep us
posted.
Missed you in Tucson! Again, Good Luck!
Dennis Miller
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2012 22:17:55 -0700
Subject: [meteorite-list] 2nd Report from
Strewnfield in Edgewood Texas
Nothing has been found where the radar data said it
might be. Torvald
and Donavan have left the zone replaced by Stephen
Thompson out of
Fredricksburg TX who is an expert on Sonic Boom
characteristics.
I've been lucky enough to get some media attention
to try to motivate
the public to assist here is today's interview on
TV. This is the 5 TV
interview I've given since arriving.
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/video/6713580-meteor-hunters-scouring-north-texas/
We spent the day interviewing more witnesses&
compiling and extending
the range of sonic boom farther to the east to
include Wills Point, and
southern Lake Tawakanii.
We'll do some field samplings tomorrow east of 19.
Also as a warning. I've heard from a local that the
landowner who owns
the land in the north where the upper radar blip
is, has gotten very
hostile to all outsiders. The local warned me to
tell everyone to stay
off that property. He thinks the landowner may
shoot to wound or maim.
So I'd like everyone to take that threat to heart.
At this point, we have two new important
observations and think the
strewnfield to be east of 19 now.
At this point, there have been no Z sightings, but
the Black Panther
remains a constant threat. 5 dogs were killed.
Also, the park rangers
at the state park warned us that a mountain lion
has been spotted in the
area.
Some sonic boom activity has been traced back to
some individual using
some kind of reactive explosive that detonates when
shot by a bullet.
The local police has informed us this has been a
bit of a problem for
weeks. Consequently, it really screws up our
acoustical survey.
and a mention and big hand to Dirk Ross, David
Gonzales, and Marc Fries
for giving us back support.
-mccartney taylor& stephen thompson
(meteorite hunter) (offical panther bait)
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