The point is that we aren't talking about an ordinary meteorite, but a
meteorite that arrives at the ground retaining a hypersonic speed.
That's easier for an iron, because it can potentially survive much
deeper into the atmosphere without being disrupted. I only know of one
documented small crater forming event, and that's Sikhote-Alin (anybody
know of others? Maybe Cali almost qualifies?) Had that body been stony,
it certainly would not have produced any craters, since it would have
shattered much higher and the resulting meteorites would have landed at
low speeds. So I'd argue that a reasonable case could be made that small
crater forming events are going to be weighted towards iron bodies, even
though irons themselves represent only a few percent of falls.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Utas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Chris Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Meteorite-list"
<[email protected]>; "Sterling K. Webb"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 6:20 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Experts Skeptical of Peruvian Meteorite
Impact
Maybe he meant (or said, and was misreported) that a small crater
forming
event was much more likely to involve an iron parent? That might be a
reasonable statement.
Given that any given falling meteorite is ~950% more likely to be a
stone than an iron, I don't see this as likely...
With regards to the smaller likelihood of such a small crater being
produced by a stone rather than an iron (Sterling), I would have to
say that without some comparisons as to the relative abundances of
such stony bodies to irons, and without knowing any information such
as entry angle or velocity, not to mention the fact that without such
data, we don't even know what size the body initially was to any
reasonable degree, I would conclude that any such statement would have
had to have been made -very- prematurely.
Jason
______________________________________________
Meteorite-list mailing list
[email protected]
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
