Re: [meteorite-list] from Kevin Kichinka
This is from Kevin: -- Buenes noches mi amigos y amigas: At this moment, I wonder if we aren't witnessing events surrounding the 21st century's first historic meteorite. There are elements of this fall common with meteorites seen to fall in the 18th century. - A fireball was seen with explosions and smoke trail. - People claim to be harmed by vapors associated with pieces of the fall. - Scientists present suspect reports. One apparently identifies a chondritic-type pallasite. - A small water-filled depression is represented as a meteorite crater although as yet no authenticated meteorites have been recovered. - The town of Guarina, 25 kilometers from the crater has more physical damage than Desaguadero, ten kilometers from the crater. - After two weeks, although kilos of meteorites have been found and purchased, none has been authenticated or offered for sale. Gonzalo Periera of the San Andres University of La Paz, Bolivia reports from the site that he has not seen Mike Farmer and Robert Ward. He writes, We knew of one American crater visitor, his name is Ronald Gregory, a geologist from a University (Sorry but in this moment I don't remember the name of this University). He was researching the last July 26, a fireball event in Arequipa, Peru. And then came to Huanucollo, he said us that he doesn't believe return so he need to buy some specimens to his University. The other American meteorite hunter was a young man, every time far of the people, the peasants said me that this gringo came from USA and he spent two days living in the house of one of the peasants, finally he began to buy meteorites. Gonzalo goes on, The town of Desaguadero is about 10 kilometers from the crater, and they hear only a big explosion. But the town of Guarina is about 25 kilometers and in this town the glass of the windows was fractured by the explosion. About a strong smell, the most of the people say that the odor looks like a sulfur. About the people who were sick, we talked with the medicals of Desaguadero, they said that the media from Lima, inflated the number of sick, I believe that this is psychological: - Peru was a earthquake weeks ago and all the people is stressing. - The Police Major of Desaguadero, made him scared about the dangerous material that the peasant had collected. Then he obligated the peasant to give him all this material, then he spent 8 days of vacation because he was sick To me is the first time that I saw a structure like this, the walls of the crater was painted with a grey color, if you put in this color your magnet, all was iron, Today this iron dust is in the hands of the campesinos and they are selling by kilogram. About the analysis, I have some doubts, too. Ronald, if you are reading this, please offer an opinion on the type of meteorite you presumably have collected or purchased. Kevin Kichinka Tambor de Alajuela, Costa Rica __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Rocks From Space Picture of the Day - October 2, 2007
http://www.spacerocksinc.com/October_2_2007.html Michael Johnson www.spacerocksinc.com www.sikhote-alin.org ** See what's new at http://www.aol.com __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Rocks From Space Picture of the Day - October 2, 2007
Thanks Michael, And thank-you Andi and John. Okay, I admit I know nothing about thin sections. Someone educate me. What are the vertical pieces that sort of remind me of mitochondria in a cell? What does the horizontal color gradient indicate? -Walter Branch - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 7:46 AM Subject: [meteorite-list] Rocks From Space Picture of the Day - October 2,2007 http://www.spacerocksinc.com/October_2_2007.html Michael Johnson www.spacerocksinc.com www.sikhote-alin.org ** See what's new at http://www.aol.com __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Dawn Journal - September 30, 2007
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/journal_9_30_07.asp Dawn Journal Dr. Marc Rayman September 30, 2007 Dear Dawnitsways, The Dawn project welcomes you to deep space! Dawn is operating smoothly on the fourth day of its 8-year adventure. Like new parents, its extremely proud and greatly sleep-deprived Earthbound mission operations team is carefully monitoring its every move. Launch had been targeted for September 26, but during its last few days on Earth, Dawn continued to be subjected to the vagaries of the weather on that dynamic planet. The second stage of the Delta II 7925H-9.5 rocket had been scheduled to have its second stage filled with propellants on September 23. The nitrogen tetroxide was pumped in before bad weather prevented further activities at Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 17B, so Dawn waited patiently and safely inside the protective payload fairing, or nose cone, of the rocket. On September 24 a delicious blend of hydrazine and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (together known as Aerozine-50) was loaded as the countdown resumed, targeted for launch on September 27 at the 7:20 am EDT opening of the launch window. This writer arrived at JPL at 11:30 pm PDT on September 26. The security guards, although recognizing him (and his car), diligently verified his identification in the chilly autumn evening and received the enthusiastic greeting, We're going to the asteroid belt tonight! Upon hearing, All right!! your loyal correspondent was ready to head into mission control. The countdown continued smoothly until shortly before launch when a ship was discovered to have entered a restricted zone in the waters east of the launch site. This required an unplanned hold. The Delta rocket does not account for the changing position of the launch pad in space as Earth rotates, so a launch delay would place the spacecraft on a different trajectory. Most interplanetary missions have launch windows of only 1 second because they have too little maneuvering capability to compensate for the altered trajectory of the rocket. Dawn's ion propulsion system gives it much greater flexibility, so its launch window on September 27 was 29 minutes long. That proved to be more than enough to allow the Coast Guard to invite the ship to depart and then continue to ensure that no one would be at risk of being harmed as the launch vehicle flew overhead. The countdown resumed, no other glitches occurred, the rocket roared to life, and Dawn's voyage began at 7:34:00.372 am EDT. It was propelled off the launch pad not only by nearly 890,000 pounds of thrust (which grew within 1 second to about 1,070,000 pounds) but also by the enthusiasm of the people who designed and built it, those who will fly it and will analyze the data it returns, and the vastly greater number of people who share in the yearning to know the cosmos. The rocket and all downrange tracking systems performed extremely well, and Dawn's ride to space was very much what had been foretold in prophecy. This was the 76th consecutive successful launch of a Delta II. Following separation from the third stage at 8:36 am, Dawn went to work, and the Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California began receiving its radio transmissions at about 9:43 am. Since then, the mission operations team at JPL has kept it company constantly, albeit from an increasingly remote location. Even as the cheers of hearing from the probe were echoing in mission control, the team began a prompt assessment of Dawn's health. It was evident quickly that it was in good condition, and operators were pleased to see that the myriad problems they had trained to handle were now little more than a fond recollection from simulations. Upon conducting more detailed analyses of Dawn's telemetry, engineers found that it handled itself quite admirably, operating completely on its own, in space for the first time. As it was programmed to do, it dealt with the few minor unexpected conditions it encountered with the skill of a seasoned pro. Over the subsequent days, the team gradually reconfigured the spacecraft subsystems to prepare for the extensive testing and checkout scheduled to conclude in mid December. By the time this report was filed, the team had sent 148 sets of commands to Dawn and had scrutinized thousands of measurements of temperatures, pressures, voltages, currents, data buffer volumes, valve and switch positions, and many many other parameters. Now the spacecraft is ready to be put through its paces before it begins its ion propelled voyage past Mars and then on to the uncharted and distant worlds Vesta and Ceres. After years of planning, designing, building, and testing, the Dawn mission is underway. While the fulfillment of its scientific objectives remains well in the future, the craft finally is in space, and a far far more exciting and challenging phase of the project is beginning. Dawn is 1,158,000 kilometers (720,000 miles) from Earth or 3 times farther than the moon.
[meteorite-list] BO - Barred Olivine Chondrule: RFS Picture of the Day
Walter wrote: Thanks Michael - thank you Andi and John Yes, thanks a lot ... that's a beautiful barred olivine chondrule! Okay, I admit I know nothing about thin sections. Someone educate me. Woe, it's me, shame and scandal in the family ... :-)) What are the vertical pieces that sort of remind me of mitochondria in a cell? These worm-like or larva-like features are olivine bars - hence BO chondrule, barred olivine chondrule. Well, a similar picture can be seen in O.R. Norton's Cambridge Encyclopedia, page 113. What does the horizontal color gradient indicate? This may indicate three things: 1) in accordance with what O.R. Norton says on p. 113, the rim and the bars on the right are not in optical continuity (not oriented identically); 2) the bars and the rim on the left are chemically somewhat different, probably richer in iron than the yellow-orange crystals on the right; 3) the thin section does not have a uniform thickness. (1) and (3) are improbable as both bars and rim seem to be oriented identically (north - south in the picture), so my guess is that the color gradient indicates chemical composition as explained in (2). Best TS wishes, Bernd __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] BO - Barred Olivine Chondrule: RFS Picture of the Day
In a message dated 10/2/2007 9:47:42 A.M. Mountain Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 3) the thin section does not have a uniform thickness. (1) and (3) are improbable as both bars and rim seem to be oriented identically (north - south in the picture), so my guess is that the color gradient indicates chemical composition as explained in (2). Best TS wishes, Bernd __ This thin-section is of uniform thickness. It is of the highest quality, made by The Expert. Thanks Bernd for the explanation. Anne M. Black www.IMPACTIKA.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] President, I.M.C.A. Inc. www.IMCA.cc ** See what's new at http://www.aol.com __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] BO - Barred Olivine Chondrule: RFS Picture of the Day
Hello again, I just got mail from Marc Fries. Thank you, Marc! Very much appreciated. Now, Marc prefers option #3 and so he writes: I was thinking option 3), myself. It only takes a thickness variation on the order of 100 nanometers or so to get that color gradient, and if it were chemical I'd expect a change in the rim vs. the interior rather than an uniform gradient across the chondrule. Rather convincing! Why should the chemical composition within a single BO chondrule change *gradually*... especially in view of the fact that the bars are oriented identically! Best wishes, Bernd __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Rocks From Space Picture of the Day - October 2, 2007
Walter, Thank you for the question. You are familiar with a lot of this but let me go over it once quickly. A thin section is a slice of rock attached to a glass slide. The sample is ground and polished flat and to a uniform thickness. The standard thickness is 0.03mm. Various optical and other tests may be done on it in this form. Today's Picture of the Day is of a thin section of Andi Gren's The Needle chondrite, named for the long stringers of metal in it. The slide was photographed under a microscope in cross polarized transmitted light. That is, light from below passed through a linear polarizing filter (these things have orientation) then through the thin section then through another polarizing filter set ninety degrees to the other, up through the microscope and into the camera. The picture is of a portion of a barred olivine chondrule. Chondrules are generally spherical meteorite components of debated origin. When they were formed they were partially or wholly molten. Some show evidence of having gone through multiple stages of accretion, melting, breaking, joining and thermal and aqueous alteration. Barred olivine chondrules are believed to have been fully molten and rapidly cooled. On cooling the olivine in simple BO chondrules, like this one, formed a single large skeletal crystal inside the solidified spherical droplet and included the shell of the chondrule. The internal skeletal crystal is a set of parallel plates, shaped rather like the flat tubing in radiators that carry steam or water. When we slice through one of these spheres the cut plates appear as bars, the vertical pieces Walter mentions. The material between the bars is material sequestered while the olivine organized itself. It is feldspathic in composition and begins in a glassy state. With heat it becomes cloudy and even crystalline as its atoms become organized. The color gradation from left to right is probably due to a very slight change in thickness of the sample as Bernd and Marc say. It wouldn't take much. Would anyone out there consider that it could be from a slight change in the orientation of portions of the crystal across its width? This is a big ol' thing. Just the portion pictured is probably over three millimeters across. All the best, - John John Kashuba Ontario, California -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Walter Branch Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 5:44 AM To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Rocks From Space Picture of the Day - October 2, 2007 Thanks Michael, And thank-you Andi and John. Okay, I admit I know nothing about thin sections. Someone educate me. What are the vertical pieces that sort of remind me of mitochondria in a cell? What does the horizontal color gradient indicate? -Walter Branch - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 7:46 AM Subject: [meteorite-list] Rocks From Space Picture of the Day - October 2,2007 http://www.spacerocksinc.com/October_2_2007.html Michael Johnson www.spacerocksinc.com www.sikhote-alin.org ** See what's new at http://www.aol.com __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] AD Carancas - Ebay auction - Met list auction
(Posted for Gregory Randall) Mike or Ken, Please. one last post. List members, Feeling much better after 3 hours sleep. Talking with my wife this morning she feels that we should go to Desag. She's looking for tickets as I'm composing. She talked with a policeman at Desag and he invited us down. I think what I'm going to propose is that we help sell their little booty for whatever the market will pay with the understanding that part of what they make will go to the church. If I can elicit written promises that they will help protect the crater during excavation that will be my fee. I'll make daily progress reports along with pics. My wife was a little hesitant, but reassured her that basically these are good men, and just maybe a little crazy from the smell of money. Hopefully, with the help of the priest we can convince them to be true to themselves and their people. My impetus now is to get back to the crater and work with the city to extract the main mass, if any. Personally, I have a hard time believing that total meteorite material is less than 10,000 grams. That a 10,000 gram meteorite made such a huge crater. Maybe it all vaporized and then again, maybe not. There could be tons of meteorite material in that crater 'rotting' away. I have to get these meteorites sold and I already have a few offers to buy my entire lot. Lima is very humid and I know what happened to my other meteorites. They started to oxidize and change color. I want to get these into collections as early as possible. I realized that I can still continue working from the field. I have a laptop, cell phone, and a newly aquired (yesterday) digital camera. I'll take my Nikon too. Anyway, I need to get back. Time is not on our side... I can take really good quality digital pics and have them posted daily along with fresh travel reports. You can be a part of this expedition and I would encourage it. I'm going to Desag to help and to record everythin. I'm going to go put my bare feet in the crater's water to show that the meteorite causes no ill effects. If you read my post about the dust from the meteorite, you already know that the dust is a very powerful irritant, albiet with no permanent effects. There has been no response to my met-list only offer, so I'm going ahead and start to sell them on Ebay. Gotta Run, Randall __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Rocks From Space Picture of the Day - October 2, 2007
Hi Walter, Bernd, John, Anne, As John mentioned the Chondrule was very big, so the chance to get a small inaccuracy is very big, dont know how much magnification this picture was taken and what magnification is common. But the bares in the Chondrule where visible with naked eye , the moment where I contacted John and asked how to get a great picture . The Meteorite is an amazing impact melted Chondrite ,mainly attracted attention with huge Troilit inclusions. The Meteorite is under classification, so soon a NWA name can be ad to this fine image. Even if the colour change is made by inaccuracy, it makes the picture very aesthetic. best regards Andi __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] BO - Barred Olivine Chondrule: RFS Picture of the Day
For those of you who don't know what you're looking at in this picture, here is a little explanation. All of the colored bars and the circular rim in this picture are the mineral olivine. The black stuff in between the bars is either feldspathic glass (possible if this is a highly unequilibrated chondrite) or microcrystalline material that probably was once glassy. The image is taken with two polarizers, one below the thin section and another above it, with the two polarizers rotated 90 degrees to each other (petrographers call this crossed polarizers). Some minerals are isotropic and some are anisotropic. Isotropic minerals have the same optical properties in all directions. If you put a thin section of such a mineral between crossed polars, it will look black. The glass in chondrules is isotropic, so it looks black in this photo. However olivine is anisotropic: its index of refraction is not the same in every direction. When viewed between crossed polarizers, interference colors are seen. This property is called birefringence. Olivine has a relatively high birefringence, which is why it appears to have gaudy colors in photos of standard thin sections like this, compared to minerals like pyroxene or feldspar, which are much less birefringent (but not isotropic) and would appear white to gray. The exact color of an individual grain depends on several factors. One is the thickness of the section. A change of a few micrometers in thickness could give the effect seen in this photo. Such a large change over the distance of a few hundred micrometers would indicate this a really badly made thin section, and it would be obvious to the owner. I assume it is not this. The birefringence of olivine is also a weak function of composition; it would take a large Fe-Mg gradient to give you an effect like this. This is almost certainly not the case. Zoning from side-to-side in chondrules is basically unknown in chondrites; it is almost always radial. The other, and almost certainly the correct explanation for the color change is that the orientation of the crystal changes slightly across the chondrule. A small amount of deformation, perhaps due to light shock, or perhaps due to the way the olivine crystallized, could easily cause this effect. The highly fractured nature of the olivine (see all the little transverse cracks), is consistent with shock. The deformation may also have taken place during production of the thin section, if the section buckled a tiny bit. jeff At 12:36 PM 10/2/2007, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello again, I just got mail from Marc Fries. Thank you, Marc! Very much appreciated. Now, Marc prefers option #3 and so he writes: I was thinking option 3), myself. It only takes a thickness variation on the order of 100 nanometers or so to get that color gradient, and if it were chemical I'd expect a change in the rim vs. the interior rather than an uniform gradient across the chondrule. Rather convincing! Why should the chemical composition within a single BO chondrule change *gradually*... especially in view of the fact that the bars are oriented identically! Best wishes, Bernd __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list Dr. Jeffrey N. Grossman phone: (703) 648-6184 US Geological Survey fax: (703) 648-6383 954 National Center Reston, VA 20192, USA __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Carancas meteorite expedition
Hi everyone, I am writing from an undisclosed location, but will be home tomorrow night from Peru. Robert Ward, Moritz Karl, and myself have been in Carancas for the last 4 days. When I say craphole, Desaguadero is the definition that would come up first! More on that later, we had to get creative today to leave town as the corrupt police had us all staked out all night, including visits to my hotel room last night and at 5 am this morning demanding payment for protection and permision to leave the country. We toured the crater for days, bought and found some nice material, and will post photos in a couple of days. The crater is huge, the meteorite inside must weigh in excess of 4000-5000 kilos. Compared with the 1700 kilogram Jilin main mass which made a crater less than half the size of the Carancas meteorite. Unfortunately, the government of Peru in all it´s wisdom, wants the meteorite to rot in the water, as they see dollar signs in bringing tourists to the crater which in one month will be nothing more than a mudpit as the rains are about to begin. Yesterday we had the entire village present and pumped out the water from the crater, and the locals were about to dig, then at 1 pm, the mayor decided that was enough work for the day, and would let the crater fill with water again, so they could start from scratch again today! The wisdom of the local mayor really impresses me. He felt that 1 hour of labor yesterday was sufficient, and ignored my advice that every day sitting in fetid water was not doing the meteorite any good. All of the meteorite fragments that were blown out of the crater have been sold off to people, and taken by locals, very little is there, mostly crumbs and dust. We got some nice pieces, all pristine, not rusted crap, and I will offer some for sale when I get home. The meteorite is a high-metal chondrite, highly brecciated, and most fragments have shock veins on the outside, where they broke apart, at first we thought that it was strange fusion crust, then realized that they black crust is actully shock vein where the clasts seperated. More later, we are tired, and have been travling the dangerous Peruvian roads all day. I will add more to the story soon, but rest assured, the meteorite is mostly lost/rotted away because the people from the universities in Peru are clueless. We had a meeting/interrigation at police headquarters for some hours last night, and it seems that they know more about meteorite than I do. IE, they are dangerous, they are contaminated, they bring diseases, they kill livestock and poison the village water. Thus it cant be dug up! Michael Farmer __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Titicaca meteorite-- phinally, photos
It is a real meteorite, the black is not fusion crust, but rather exposed shock veins. Very interesting meteorite, and not much will be found. FORGET about getting crater material, it has been more than two weeks in horrible water that people are urinating in for fun! The meteorite is very fragile, very porous, and will be rotted out already. I spoke with the landowner, who was our driver for days, and he told me that no more than 20-30 kilos was found and most was taken by tourists and locals. We managed to get some pieces in town from people who had picked them up, and we all found pieces ourselves with metal detectors. I found a metal nodule more than 1 cm, weighing 6 grams. Very interesting. I think it is an H5. Michael Farmer Any labs or scientists on this list who want samples, email me, I will gladly provide. Mike --- Darren Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: More photos: http://webpages.charter.net/garrison6328/titicaca/ __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Titicaca meteorite-- phinally, photos
only 20-30 kg? and where is go the others? A similar crater minimum is a mass type Jilin Matteo - Original Message - Da : Michael Farmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] A : [EMAIL PROTECTED], Meteorite Mailing List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Oggetto : Re: [meteorite-list] Titicaca meteorite-- phinally, photos Data : Tue, 2 Oct 2007 11:48:57 -0700 (PDT) It is a real meteorite, the black is not fusion crust, but rather exposed shock veins. Very interesting meteorite, and not much will be found. FORGET about getting crater material, it has been more than two weeks in horrible water that people are urinating in for fun! The meteorite is very fragile, very porous, and will be rotted out already. I spoke with the landowner, who was our driver for days, and he told me that no more than 20-30 kilos was found and most was taken by tourists and locals. We managed to get some pieces in town from people who had picked them up, and we all found pieces ourselves with metal detectors. I found a metal nodule more than 1 cm, weighing 6 grams. Very interesting. I think it is an H5. Michael Farmer Any labs or scientists on this list who want samples, email me, I will gladly provide. Mike --- Darren Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: More photos: http://webpages.charter.net/garrison6328/titicaca/ __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] BO - Barred Olivine Chondrule: RFS Picture of the Day
I now have this glorious barred chondrule set as my desktop wallpaper. Thank you for making this possible. Tracy Latimer _ Boo! Scare away worms, viruses and so much more! Try Windows Live OneCare! http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-us/purchase/trial.aspx?s_cid=wl_hotmailnews __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] More Peru News, Including Locationa and Trajectory of Peru Impact
Dear friends, more about the Peru impact, including a figure showing the location of the impact and presumed trajectory of the meteorite can be found in: Mysteries remain over Peru meteorite impact by Jeff Hecht New Scientist, September 28, 2007 http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/140757-Mysteries+remain+over+Peru+meteorite+impact Inferred trajectory and location of impact shown at: http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/image/image/3376/dn12704-3_800.jpg Wild theories about meteorite in Peru discounted Globe and Mail, Canada Sep 26, 2007 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070926.wmeteor26/BNStory/Science/home It came from space by Margaret Munro , CanWest News Service, September 27, 2007 http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/story.html?id=965de176-30b8-4dcc-99c0-7afb84b996adk=40357 Yours, Paul H. Need a vacation? Get great deals to amazing places on Yahoo! Travel. http://travel.yahoo.com/ __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Titicaca meteorite-- phinally, photos
Matteo, did you not see the huge crater filled with several meters of water? The rest of the meteorite is 4 or 5 meters under sewage water. Good luck getting some of that. I had a meeting with the townspeople and mayor of Desaguadero ( and I have video to prove it all) and we pumped out the water yesterday, but like I said, Peru works differently than the rest of the world, as soon as the water was pumped out, they quit work for the day at 1 pm, and watched the water refill the crater. They said MANANA which means tomorrow or the next day, or the next etc etc etc. Then things got very hot, and we bugged out, to leave the largest stone meteorite likely known to rot in its disgusting grave. They think the crater will make a great tourist site to make on. For people who live in the mud, it seems they would know that the first rains will collapse the crater and make nothing more than a water-filled depression. I am sure tourists will pour in by the busload to check that mudpit out. Michael Farmer --- M come Meteorite Meteorites [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: only 20-30 kg? and where is go the others? A similar crater minimum is a mass type Jilin Matteo - Original Message - Da : Michael Farmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] A : [EMAIL PROTECTED], Meteorite Mailing List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Oggetto : Re: [meteorite-list] Titicaca meteorite-- phinally, photos Data : Tue, 2 Oct 2007 11:48:57 -0700 (PDT) It is a real meteorite, the black is not fusion crust, but rather exposed shock veins. Very interesting meteorite, and not much will be found. FORGET about getting crater material, it has been more than two weeks in horrible water that people are urinating in for fun! The meteorite is very fragile, very porous, and will be rotted out already. I spoke with the landowner, who was our driver for days, and he told me that no more than 20-30 kilos was found and most was taken by tourists and locals. We managed to get some pieces in town from people who had picked them up, and we all found pieces ourselves with metal detectors. I found a metal nodule more than 1 cm, weighing 6 grams. Very interesting. I think it is an H5. Michael Farmer Any labs or scientists on this list who want samples, email me, I will gladly provide. Mike --- Darren Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: More photos: http://webpages.charter.net/garrison6328/titicaca/ __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Re-2: Titicaca meteorite-- phinally, photos
Hello Mike, Matteo and List, Peru works differently than the rest of the world What a pity, what a pity! The rest of the meteorite is 4 or 5 meters under sewage water Yes, no chance under such circumstances. The Kirin (Jilin) meteorite main mass was found at a depth of almost six meters and this was only possible because the ground (loessal clay) was still almost frozen ... quite unlike this waterhole filled with filthy water :-( Bernd __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Titicaca meteorite-- phinally, photos
It is a real meteorite, the black is not fusion crust, but rather exposed shock veins. Very interesting meteorite, and not much will be found. FORGET about getting crater material, it has been more than two weeks in horrible water that people are urinating in for fun! The meteorite is very fragile, very porous, and will be rotted out already. Hi Mike and List Great that You save some material from this peruvian irresponsible individuals. If meteorite is as big as You say (1ton or larger) I think it will not rust so fast. Remember Bjurbole that land on sea bottom (and hit ice cover)? It is one of the most porous meteorites and all material I have seen is fresh. And ofcourse salt water is more destructive than sweet water. But anyway one thing is obvious, if they not dig it up, this will fall to pieces. And they will lose crater, meteorite and tourists money. But nothing can be ideal. -[ MARCIN CIMALA ]-[ I.M.C.A.#3667 ]- http://www.Meteoryt.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.PolandMET.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.Gao-Guenie.com GSM +48(607)535 195 [ Member of Polish Meteoritical Society ] __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Titicaca meteorite-- phinally, photos
It MUST be more than 3 or 4 tons, the crater is huge, much larger than Jilin main mass crater, there were pieces of sod (maybe 40 kilograms chunks of hard soil) thrown more than 100 meters in every direction. One piece hit the landowners home and damaged the roof. It is simple physics to know that the mass which made that crater must weigh many tons. As fragile as the meteorite is, I think the pieces are soaking up the water and rusting to hell already. Wonderful for science study I guess. Michael Farmer --- PolandMET marcinIt [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It is a real meteorite, the black is not fusion crust, but rather exposed shock veins. Very interesting meteorite, and not much will be found. FORGET about getting crater material, it has been more than two weeks in horrible water that people are urinating in for fun! The meteorite is very fragile, very porous, and will be rotted out already. Hi Mike and List Great that You save some material from this peruvian irresponsible individuals. If meteorite is as big as You say (1ton or larger) I think it will not rust so fast. Remember Bjurbole that land on sea bottom (and hit ice cover)? It is one of the most porous meteorites and all material I have seen is fresh. And ofcourse salt water is more destructive than sweet water. But anyway one thing is obvious, if they not dig it up, this will fall to pieces. And they will lose crater, meteorite and tourists money. But nothing can be ideal. -[ MARCIN CIMALA ]-[ I.M.C.A.#3667 ]- http://www.Meteoryt.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.PolandMET.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.Gao-Guenie.com GSM +48(607)535 195 [ Member of Polish Meteoritical Society ] __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] FW: Really Cool LL5 added to my auctions... worth a look!
From: michael cottingham [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 4:35 PM To: 'michael cottingham' Subject: AD: Really Cool LL5 added to my auctions... worth a look! Hello, I added a really cool LL5 to my ebay auctions this week. Buy it now is a good price, but I have it marked down a bit, if you want to take your chance with bidding.there is that option too. Go to: http://search.stores.ebay.com/Voyage-Botanica-Natural-History_nwa-2380_W0QQf ciZ10QQfclZ4QQfsnZVoyageQ20BotanicaQ20NaturalQ20HistoryQQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1QQsas elZ1015304QQsofpZ0 or http://stores.ebay.com/Voyage-Botanica-Natural-History add search auctions to see what is up this week. Best Wishes and Thanks Michael Cottingham __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos
I was lucky enough to learn that teenager was able to take a photo of the Carancas meteorite smoketrail, and I purchased the right to copy and use that photo. I will post this when I get home, and it belongs to me, please do not use it without my permission. I gave him enough to buy a new camera and take 1000 more photos. He saw the fall, grabbed his camera, snapped a photo of the corkscrew smoketrail, then went to the fall site some 5 miles away. The other photos were very poor, so I did not use them, but they showed the crater filling with water, and many chunks of meteorite in the crater walls, as well as incredible amounts of meteorite powder. He also had a photo from a distance of more than 2 kilometers where you could see a smokecloud which looked like a small mushroom cloud which he confirmed was the steam coming from the crater. That photo was visible, but too poor for me to use as I could not copy it and see the detail. Is it indeed possible that a mass of say 3-7 tons could cause such intense heat on impact? We think that the compression of the soil, in an instant to many meteors deep could also cause intense heating. Every person we interviewed decribed boiling water, lots of steam, and horrible sulfer type smell. The media of course, hyped the crap to levels that were bordering on insane. Michael Farmer __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Meteor Lights Up Sky in Melbourne, Australia
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/03/2049439.htm Meteor lights up Melbourne sky By Jan Deane Australian Broadcasting Corporation October 2, 2007 The Astronomical Society of Victoria says a meteor was the source of an array of coloured lights seen in skies across the state last night. The vice president, Perry Vlahos says the meteor was first spotted in north eastern Victoria just before 10:00pm, and it was also seen in some areas of South Australia. Callers to the ABC reported seeing the lights in several locations, including Leongatha in Gippsland and in the Melbourne suburb of Doncaster. He says while meteors often enter the Earth's atmosphere, this one put on a brilliant display. In some reports it appears to have lit up the ground and cast strong shadows so that's a fairly impressive sight, he said. Some other reports have indicated that it may have had a green tinge to its colour which betrays the presence of some copper in its makeup, Mr Vlahos said. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos
On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 15:54:57 -0700 (PDT), you wrote: Is it indeed possible that a mass of say 3-7 tons could cause such intense heat on impact? We think that the compression of the soil, in an instant to many meteors deep could also cause intense heating. Every person we interviewed decribed boiling water, lots of steam, and horrible sulfer type smell. The What I wonder is if maybe the pressure/heat could have caused dissolved gases to bubble out from the water? So it might not have been at a boiling temperature, but still bubbling/steaming? Too bad we don't have samples of the groundwater and soil from the area to see if there is anything weird/extensively poluted about it. Also odd, of course, is a fraglie, porus stone as you describe surviving to the ground big enough and fast enough to make the crater. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos
What remains to be determined is if this is actually a crater, or just a big splash. In the first case, some shocked material should show up, and I think it's likely that nothing is left in the bottom. If there really is a big meteorite at the bottom, then this probably isn't a crater in the usual sense (that is, produced by a large energy release as the parent body explodes/vaporizes). I don't believe I've seen anything credible to suggest that the water was actually boiling or steaming. It doesn't take much energy to make a hole this size in soft ground- probably around 100 kg TNT equivalent. And that's not enough to heat up that much water very much. So I expect that any apparent bubbling was nothing more than an effect of ground water filling in the new hole. If the recovered material is shocked fragments, it may be structurally quite different from the parent body. Chris * Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com - Original Message - From: Darren Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 5:37 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 15:54:57 -0700 (PDT), you wrote: Is it indeed possible that a mass of say 3-7 tons could cause such intense heat on impact? We think that the compression of the soil, in an instant to many meteors deep could also cause intense heating. Every person we interviewed decribed boiling water, lots of steam, and horrible sulfer type smell. The What I wonder is if maybe the pressure/heat could have caused dissolved gases to bubble out from the water? So it might not have been at a boiling temperature, but still bubbling/steaming? Too bad we don't have samples of the groundwater and soil from the area to see if there is anything weird/extensively poluted about it. Also odd, of course, is a fraglie, porus stone as you describe surviving to the ground big enough and fast enough to make the crater. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos
Chris, it is a hell of a crater, at least 13 meters in diameter, more than one meter of uplift, looks identical to Meteor Crater to me, on a much smaller scale. There in fact does seem to be shocked material at the crater, I found only inside and just outside the crater, large pieces of compacted sandstone, yet there is no sandstone there, it seems to have solidified on the impact, everything else is more like soft mud. Large, and I mean larger pieces of sod, weighing at least 40 or 50 kilograms were thrown more than 50-100 meters, and smaller dirt clod debris thrown up to 15o meters in all directions. This is a serious impact, I mean you can call it what you want, but with the uplift, the incredible debris field thrown to all sides, the huge size, and volume of the crater itself, certainly leads me to believe that the mass weighed many tons and is obviously in the hole under some meters of fallback debris. The locals report mushroom cloud lingered for more than a hour. As far as more pieces, this meterite came in over lake Titikaka, and if you have never seen this lake, it is HUGE! I would guess that as fragil as the meteorite is, that tons of debris fell off but would most likely have all fallen into the lake, or perhaps some on the mountains just inside of Bolivia. It is not populated there, and I assume from talking to most witnesses, that the large main mass, which was a massive ball of fire much larger and brighter than the Sun, caught everyones attention pretty well, and would be so bright that smaller pieces would be drowned out by the intensity of the main mass. That is what I think happened, surely many more pieces broke off but from where the main mass hit, back down the flightpath is nothing but swamps and high mountains for about 10 miles, then 15 miles of lake. Perfect for most material to be lost. Michael Farmer --- Chris Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What remains to be determined is if this is actually a crater, or just a big splash. In the first case, some shocked material should show up, and I think it's likely that nothing is left in the bottom. If there really is a big meteorite at the bottom, then this probably isn't a crater in the usual sense (that is, produced by a large energy release as the parent body explodes/vaporizes). I don't believe I've seen anything credible to suggest that the water was actually boiling or steaming. It doesn't take much energy to make a hole this size in soft ground- probably around 100 kg TNT equivalent. And that's not enough to heat up that much water very much. So I expect that any apparent bubbling was nothing more than an effect of ground water filling in the new hole. If the recovered material is shocked fragments, it may be structurally quite different from the parent body. Chris * Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com - Original Message - From: Darren Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 5:37 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 15:54:57 -0700 (PDT), you wrote: Is it indeed possible that a mass of say 3-7 tons could cause such intense heat on impact? We think that the compression of the soil, in an instant to many meteors deep could also cause intense heating. Every person we interviewed decribed boiling water, lots of steam, and horrible sulfer type smell. The What I wonder is if maybe the pressure/heat could have caused dissolved gases to bubble out from the water? So it might not have been at a boiling temperature, but still bubbling/steaming? Too bad we don't have samples of the groundwater and soil from the area to see if there is anything weird/extensively poluted about it. Also odd, of course, is a fraglie, porus stone as you describe surviving to the ground big enough and fast enough to make the crater. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] More threats from Mr Gregory.
This is what I get from Mr Gregory, he now insults me and my wife, and my lack of children. This is one standup type of guy! Sad, what a sad comentary on the greed of someone who thinks he owns the place. --- Randall Gregory [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You're still here! When are you going to be at the embassy. I would like to be there to explain the damage you caused in Carancas. You don't know where I live and I happened to have a residence in the United States.Flee to this place, now that's funny. I love exploring SA. I am a long distance commuter. I go back to the United States to visit my children. I just returned to Peru from a 3 month stay in at home. Children, Mike are something you know absolutly nothing about. What's the problem, is little Mike not working. Or has Melody left you and traded up. Randall Michael Farmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: your information is as faulty as your judgement. Advise your friends, that I have contaced the embassy and have a meeting scheduled to discuss the money they tried to extort from me. What a dump, why do you live down here? What did you do to make you flee to this place. Most of the people were great, and I will discuss this with the list, but much more information to come. Mike --- Randall Gregory wrote: Hi Mike, Welcome to Peru! I knew you couldn't resist. I also had a report that some Americans were visiting the crater and I figured you were probably there. I know that you're in Puno waiting for the trip to Juliaca. No secret there. How's the altitude sickness? I hope you didn't drink any water in Desag. Oh, by the way, Desaguadero means place of dirty water in Spanish. You did get vaccinations for Yellow Fever, Hepatitis, and Typhoid? I sure hope so. Every good meteorite hunter should. Consider yourself lucky that you were not arrested and thrown in jail by my friends in Desaguadero. I think you'll recognize a few of your new friends. Major Victor Anaya Barrientos, police chief and my personal drinking buddy Sargent Enrique. You threatened to fuck me up, Mike. Remember? I could have had you arrested and held in jail on various charges. But I'm not vengeful guy, more of a peace-loving kind. I offered to end this war and you failed to respond to me. I gave you the chance for us to work together on this, yet you chose to go it alone.You took my invitation as a threat. A gun in your face in Columbia. Get the picture? Leave South America to me, but work with me if you want. There a 4 more falls in Peru that haven't been tapped and others in Bolivia and Ecuador. I'm enclosing some pictures to remind you of your trip. You went with 2 other guys, yet I went there alone. Just another day in the life of a meteorite hunter, huh? Toughen up Mike! BTW, I've got a little over 4,700 gms, not including the dust and small pieces. But I'm only selling around 300 gms. The large piece will be donated to a museum or other scientific institution. I appreciate the fact that you enlightened me about meteorites 'rotting'. I'm going back to Desag very soon to work with the local officials. I'm taking mining engineers to create a plan for extraction. If you want to be a part of it, I invite you to participate. As a meteorite dealer, you can also appreciate the value of what might come out of the ground. You have a real appreciation for this meteorite now and you could contribute to this project, but please don't criticize these people. The have there jobs and probably do them well. They are venturing into unknown territory with little information or experience. Hasta La Vista, Baby! or my associate. Your choice. Randall Michael Farmer wrote: Hi everyone, I am writing from an undisclosed location, but will be home tomorrow night from Peru. Robert Ward, Moritz Karl, and myself have been in Carancas for the last 4 days. When I say craphole, Desaguadero is the definition that would come up first! More on that later, we had to get creative today to leave town as the corrupt police had us all staked out all night, including visits to my hotel room last night and at 5 am this morning demanding payment for protection and permision to leave the country. We toured the crater for days, bought and found some nice material, and will post photos in a couple of days. The crater is huge, the meteorite inside must weigh in excess of 4000-5000 kilos. Compared with the 1700 kilogram Jilin main mass which made a crater less than half the size of the Carancas meteorite. Unfortunately, the government of Peru in all it´s wisdom, wants the meteorite to rot in the water, as they see dollar signs in bringing tourists to the crater which in one month will be nothing more than a mudpit as the rains are about to begin. Yesterday we had the entire
Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos
Hi, List, Michael Farmer wrote (earlier): It MUST be more than 3 or 4 tons, the crater is huge, much larger than Jilin main mass crater, there were pieces of sod (maybe 40 kilograms chunks of hard soil) thrown more than 100 meters in every direction... It is simple physics to know that the mass which made that crater must weigh many tons. The question is this: is this an impact pit or a crater? An impact pit is just a hole excavated by the physical forces exerted by a great mass traveling at high speed. Jilin is an almost-impact pit. Photos of the dig-out can be found at: http://www.planetarium.montreal.qc.ca/Information/Expo_Meteorites/Vedettes/jilin_a.html Jilin, despite the 1700 kg weight of the impactor, could never be confused with a crater. The pit was 6 meters deep, yes, but only 2 meters wide. The slow moving and durable Jilin did little more than poke a deep hole. Big rock, little hole. So, what is a crater? A crater is just a hole excavated by the physical forces of a body so energetic that it transforms itself into a gas or even a plasma, at terrific heat and pressure, which blows out a hole in the ground. While the morphology of craters vary with the strength and distribution of ground materials, in the ideal case, the hole is conical in shape. The ratio of width to depth varies with the nature of the surface and the energy content of the impactor. Big hole, little rock. Which is Carancas? The photo provided by Randall Gregory clearly shows the shape of the crater to be conical. The depth-width ratio is low, certainly less than 3:1, perhaps as low as 2.25:1. (It's hard to calculate wall angles from a re-photographed photograph!) Here's the photo: http://webpages.charter.net/garrison6328/titicaca/DSC00035.JPG In the article cited by Paul and reprinted from New Scientist: http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/140757-Mysteries+remain+over+Peru+meteorite+impact , quotes a report by Macedo and Machare that there is a one-meter raised rim, visible in other photos. Usually, this is a sign of a very energetic event. However, the rim and upper strata are not tilted; the rim is piled dirt pushed out of the hole by the impact, but not energetically enough to be thrown out over the landscape. The article further says Jackson thinks the kinetic energy of impact could have generated the heat, and is trying to find seismic records of the crash. Schultz says the heat and bubbling might have come from air trapped and heated on the front of the meteorite as it sped through the air. Schultz is a geologist at Brown University, but his is a silly suggestion. Jackson (Geological Survey of Canada) has a more interesting suggestion. If the stone was just the right size for its velocity, the back would have spalled on impact, the front would have vaporized and blown out the crater, and some portion of the middle could have melted and trapped some of the impact energy to be dissipated by boiling the water that flowed in immediately for a few minutes. The likelihood of this scenario has a very narrow window of possibility and would only happen in a true borderline event between an impact pit and a crater. Much more likely is that the impact was energetic enough to heat the wet soil and ground water well above the boiling point, and any melted rock that is found is more likely to be local rock melted by the impact, rather than meteoritic rock. This implies a high-energy event. There is a borderline case in the literature of recent falls: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1992AVest..26...82P The Sterlitamak crater, is 9.4 meters and was formed on May 17, 1990 by a one-ton iron object. While every impact differs from others, a description of that crater is of interest: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1992Metic..27R.276P The Sterlitamak meteorite fell on May 17, 1990 at 23h20m local time (17h20m GMT) and formed a crater in a field 20 km westward of the town of Sterlitamak (Petaev et al., 1991). Many witnesses in South Bashkiria saw a very bright fireball (up to -5 magnitude) moving from south to north at a ~45 degree angle to the horizon. Witnesses located ~2 km from the crater observed the fireball glowing right up to the time of impact, after which several explosions were heard. The crater was found on May 19. From witnesses' reports, the fresh crater was 4.5-5 m in depth and had sheer walls ~3 m in height below which was a conical talus surface with a hole in the center. The crater itself was surrounded by a continuous rim 60-70 cm in thickness and by radial ejecta. Our field team arrived at the crater on May 23, six days after its formation. We found the crater in rather good condition except for partial collapse of the rim, material from which had filled in the crater up to ~3 m from the surface. The western wall of the crater was composed of well-preserved brown loam with shale- like parting dipping 25-30 degrees away from the crater center. A large slip block of autogenic breccia was
Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos
you know what mike farmer has been up to the last few months is nothing short of extraordinary. what is happening before each of us right now is the meteorite lore of the future. as everyone who even glances at this list knows, i'm not blowing smoke (trails) here. kudos must also go to his hunting pals, robert ward and moritz karl , who i suspect help keep mike in motion. astonishing. simply astonishing. On Oct 2, 2007, at 8:59 PM, Michael Farmer wrote: Chris, it is a hell of a crater, at least 13 meters in diameter, more than one meter of uplift, looks identical to Meteor Crater to me, on a much smaller scale. There in fact does seem to be shocked material at the crater, I found only inside and just outside the crater, large pieces of compacted sandstone, yet there is no sandstone there, it seems to have solidified on the impact, everything else is more like soft mud. Large, and I mean larger pieces of sod, weighing at least 40 or 50 kilograms were thrown more than 50-100 meters, and smaller dirt clod debris thrown up to 15o meters in all directions. This is a serious impact, I mean you can call it what you want, but with the uplift, the incredible debris field thrown to all sides, the huge size, and volume of the crater itself, certainly leads me to believe that the mass weighed many tons and is obviously in the hole under some meters of fallback debris. The locals report mushroom cloud lingered for more than a hour. As far as more pieces, this meterite came in over lake Titikaka, and if you have never seen this lake, it is HUGE! I would guess that as fragil as the meteorite is, that tons of debris fell off but would most likely have all fallen into the lake, or perhaps some on the mountains just inside of Bolivia. It is not populated there, and I assume from talking to most witnesses, that the large main mass, which was a massive ball of fire much larger and brighter than the Sun, caught everyones attention pretty well, and would be so bright that smaller pieces would be drowned out by the intensity of the main mass. That is what I think happened, surely many more pieces broke off but from where the main mass hit, back down the flightpath is nothing but swamps and high mountains for about 10 miles, then 15 miles of lake. Perfect for most material to be lost. Michael Farmer --- Chris Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What remains to be determined is if this is actually a crater, or just a big splash. In the first case, some shocked material should show up, and I think it's likely that nothing is left in the bottom. If there really is a big meteorite at the bottom, then this probably isn't a crater in the usual sense (that is, produced by a large energy release as the parent body explodes/vaporizes). I don't believe I've seen anything credible to suggest that the water was actually boiling or steaming. It doesn't take much energy to make a hole this size in soft ground- probably around 100 kg TNT equivalent. And that's not enough to heat up that much water very much. So I expect that any apparent bubbling was nothing more than an effect of ground water filling in the new hole. If the recovered material is shocked fragments, it may be structurally quite different from the parent body. Chris * Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com - Original Message - From: Darren Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 5:37 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 15:54:57 -0700 (PDT), you wrote: Is it indeed possible that a mass of say 3-7 tons could cause such intense heat on impact? We think that the compression of the soil, in an instant to many meteors deep could also cause intense heating. Every person we interviewed decribed boiling water, lots of steam, and horrible sulfer type smell. The What I wonder is if maybe the pressure/heat could have caused dissolved gases to bubble out from the water? So it might not have been at a boiling temperature, but still bubbling/steaming? Too bad we don't have samples of the groundwater and soil from the area to see if there is anything weird/extensively poluted about it. Also odd, of course, is a fraglie, porus stone as you describe surviving to the ground big enough and fast enough to make the crater. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
[meteorite-list] Presenting my 50mm Uruacu Sphere
This week I added 3 new spheres to my collection and I plan to do a huge web site update Friday. But I had to show this beauty off now. One failed attempt and a lot of work went into this sphere and the whole process was quite stressful but the end result made it all worth while. It's 50mm in diameter and weighs 533 grams http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p298/BobaDebt/Meteorites/SPUruacu.jpg The etch doesn't have a lot of contrast but if it's like my Campo it should darken with age. However, this material is all about the inclusions and this sphere is loaded with them. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos
On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 21:37:23 -0400, you wrote: what mike farmer has been up to the last few months is nothing short of extraordinary. what is happening before each of us right now is the meteorite lore of the future. as everyone who even glances at this list knows, i'm not blowing smoke (trails) here. kudos must also go to his hunting pals, robert ward and moritz karl , who i suspect help keep mike in motion. astonishing. simply astonishing. I agree. This guy is going to be remembered in meteoritics the way Roy Chapman Andrews is remembered in paleontology. And RCA was the model for Indiana Jones. Someday, maybe they'll be a movie. Especially if his last hunt ends spectacularly badly (not that you should feel obligated to provide a crowd pleaser, Mike...) __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] When can we see the smoke trail photos
Looking forward __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Nice photos of Carancas Meteorite.
This looks like the real thing when compared to others I have seen or heard discribed. Any comments about the features welcome. As Mike Farmer said it seems difficult to work out which is crust and which might be shock veins exposed...extraordinary I think. http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6903.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6902.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6901.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6899.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6898.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6897.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6894.jpg Graham Ensor, Nr Barwell, UK __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Nice photos of Carancas meteorite
2nd post...1st didnt seem to go...sorry if it gets on the list twice. This looks like the real thing when compared to others I have seen or heard discribed. Any comments about the features welcome. As Mike Farmer said it seems difficult to work out which is crust and which might be shock veins exposed...extraordinary I think. http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6903.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6902.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6901.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6899.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6898.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6897.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6894.jpg Graham Ensor, Nr Barwell, UK __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos
Hi Michael- As a physicist (and not on the scene), my instinct is simply to perform some simple calculations to get some sense of what the various possibilities are. Assuming wet soil, which seems like what the crater was formed in, it requires about 5 GJ (~1 ton TNT) to produce a crater that size. That might reasonably be created by a 2 meter diameter, 10 ton stone impacting at 1.5 km/s. Under those conditions, the impactor would be largely converted to dust, but there would be little vaporization. A lot of water could be vaporized, which would explain the cloud that was seen, but there wouldn't be enough residual heat to boil water that refilled the crater, or even make it hot. Of course, it could have been a smaller object falling faster, or even a rather large object (~5 meter diameter) falling at a 200 m/s terminal velocity. The crater type would range from an explosive impact crater to a simple excavated hole. Distinguishing between these extremes will require getting soil samples from around the crater extending at least a few hundred meters, as well as collecting detailed measurements of the crater to determine its precise shape. Unfortunately, the conditions don't seem ideal for conducting this kind of research. Personally, I wouldn't be optimistic about finding any large body in the crater, unless the actual impact was subsonic. One question involving the fireball: did the impact occur simultaneously with the end of the fireball (which would imply a hypersonic impact of a small body), or did the impact occur a minute or more after the fireworks (which would suggest a low speed impact by a larger body)? Anyway, keep up the good work, and collect whatever data you can. I hope that the fireball was caught on a DoD satellite, and that the light curve will be released. That would greatly assist in analyzing the nature of the parent body. Chris * Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com - Original Message - From: Michael Farmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Chris Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED]; meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 6:59 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos Chris, it is a hell of a crater, at least 13 meters in diameter, more than one meter of uplift, looks identical to Meteor Crater to me, on a much smaller scale. There in fact does seem to be shocked material at the crater, I found only inside and just outside the crater, large pieces of compacted sandstone, yet there is no sandstone there, it seems to have solidified on the impact, everything else is more like soft mud. Large, and I mean larger pieces of sod, weighing at least 40 or 50 kilograms were thrown more than 50-100 meters, and smaller dirt clod debris thrown up to 15o meters in all directions. This is a serious impact, I mean you can call it what you want, but with the uplift, the incredible debris field thrown to all sides, the huge size, and volume of the crater itself, certainly leads me to believe that the mass weighed many tons and is obviously in the hole under some meters of fallback debris. The locals report mushroom cloud lingered for more than a hour. As far as more pieces, this meterite came in over lake Titikaka, and if you have never seen this lake, it is HUGE! I would guess that as fragil as the meteorite is, that tons of debris fell off but would most likely have all fallen into the lake, or perhaps some on the mountains just inside of Bolivia. It is not populated there, and I assume from talking to most witnesses, that the large main mass, which was a massive ball of fire much larger and brighter than the Sun, caught everyones attention pretty well, and would be so bright that smaller pieces would be drowned out by the intensity of the main mass. That is what I think happened, surely many more pieces broke off but from where the main mass hit, back down the flightpath is nothing but swamps and high mountains for about 10 miles, then 15 miles of lake. Perfect for most material to be lost. Michael Farmer __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Nice photos of Carancas Meteorite
3rd post...1st and 2nd didnt seem to go...sorry if it gets on the list more than once. This looks like the real thing when compared to others I have seen or heard discribed. Any comments about the features welcome. As Mike Farmer said it seems difficult to work out which is crust and which might be shock veins exposed...extraordinary I think. http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6903.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6902.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6901.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6899.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6898.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6897.jpg http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o43/LaburnumStudio/DSCN6894.jpg Graham Ensor, Nr Barwell, UK __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos
Perhaps I am dumber than a bag of hammers, but I am confused Are Carnacas and Titicaca two separate falls Or one in the same? Is anyone else confused on this issue? Michael on 10/2/07 5:59 PM, Michael Farmer at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Chris, it is a hell of a crater, at least 13 meters in diameter, more than one meter of uplift, looks identical to Meteor Crater to me, on a much smaller scale. There in fact does seem to be shocked material at the crater, I found only inside and just outside the crater, large pieces of compacted sandstone, yet there is no sandstone there, it seems to have solidified on the impact, everything else is more like soft mud. Large, and I mean larger pieces of sod, weighing at least 40 or 50 kilograms were thrown more than 50-100 meters, and smaller dirt clod debris thrown up to 15o meters in all directions. This is a serious impact, I mean you can call it what you want, but with the uplift, the incredible debris field thrown to all sides, the huge size, and volume of the crater itself, certainly leads me to believe that the mass weighed many tons and is obviously in the hole under some meters of fallback debris. The locals report mushroom cloud lingered for more than a hour. As far as more pieces, this meterite came in over lake Titikaka, and if you have never seen this lake, it is HUGE! I would guess that as fragil as the meteorite is, that tons of debris fell off but would most likely have all fallen into the lake, or perhaps some on the mountains just inside of Bolivia. It is not populated there, and I assume from talking to most witnesses, that the large main mass, which was a massive ball of fire much larger and brighter than the Sun, caught everyones attention pretty well, and would be so bright that smaller pieces would be drowned out by the intensity of the main mass. That is what I think happened, surely many more pieces broke off but from where the main mass hit, back down the flightpath is nothing but swamps and high mountains for about 10 miles, then 15 miles of lake. Perfect for most material to be lost. Michael Farmer --- Chris Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What remains to be determined is if this is actually a crater, or just a big splash. In the first case, some shocked material should show up, and I think it's likely that nothing is left in the bottom. If there really is a big meteorite at the bottom, then this probably isn't a crater in the usual sense (that is, produced by a large energy release as the parent body explodes/vaporizes). I don't believe I've seen anything credible to suggest that the water was actually boiling or steaming. It doesn't take much energy to make a hole this size in soft ground- probably around 100 kg TNT equivalent. And that's not enough to heat up that much water very much. So I expect that any apparent bubbling was nothing more than an effect of ground water filling in the new hole. If the recovered material is shocked fragments, it may be structurally quite different from the parent body. Chris * Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com - Original Message - From: Darren Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 5:37 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 15:54:57 -0700 (PDT), you wrote: Is it indeed possible that a mass of say 3-7 tons could cause such intense heat on impact? We think that the compression of the soil, in an instant to many meteors deep could also cause intense heating. Every person we interviewed decribed boiling water, lots of steam, and horrible sulfer type smell. The What I wonder is if maybe the pressure/heat could have caused dissolved gases to bubble out from the water? So it might not have been at a boiling temperature, but still bubbling/steaming? Too bad we don't have samples of the groundwater and soil from the area to see if there is anything weird/extensively poluted about it. Also odd, of course, is a fraglie, porus stone as you describe surviving to the ground big enough and fast enough to make the crater. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list -- God doesn't look at how much we do, but with how much love we do it. Mother Teresa -- When Jesus said, Love your enemies I think he probably meant don't kill them. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos
On Tue, 02 Oct 2007 21:33:37 -0700, you wrote: Perhaps I am dumber than a bag of hammers, but I am confused Are Carnacas and Titicaca two separate falls Or one in the same? Is anyone else confused on this issue? Michael Apparently, Carnacas is the name of the town or something. I call it Titicaca because it is more fun to say., and it relates to a Simpsons quote: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Superintendent+Chalmers __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] More threats from Mr Gregory.
it is a meteorite deduce put private emails text in pubblic? Matteo - Original Message - Da : Michael Farmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] A : meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Oggetto : [meteorite-list] More threats from Mr Gregory. Data : Tue, 2 Oct 2007 18:10:12 -0700 (PDT) This is what I get from Mr Gregory, he now insults me and my wife, and my lack of children. This is one standup type of guy! Sad, what a sad comentary on the greed of someone who thinks he owns the place. --- Randall Gregory [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You're still here! When are you going to be at the embassy. I would like to be there to explain the damage you caused in Carancas. You don't know where I live and I happened to have a residence in the United States.Flee to this place, now that's funny. I love exploring SA. I am a long distance commuter. I go back to the United States to visit my children. I just returned to Peru from a 3 month stay in at home. Children, Mike are something you know absolutly nothing about. What's the problem, is little Mike not working. Or has Melody left you and traded up. Randall Michael Farmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: your information is as faulty as your judgement. Advise your friends, that I have contaced the embassy and have a meeting scheduled to discuss the money they tried to extort from me. What a dump, why do you live down here? What did you do to make you flee to this place. Most of the people were great, and I will discuss this with the list, but much more information to come. Mike --- Randall Gregory wrote: Hi Mike, Welcome to Peru! I knew you couldn't resist. I also had a report that some Americans were visiting the crater and I figured you were probably there. I know that you're in Puno waiting for the trip to Juliaca. No secret there. How's the altitude sickness? I hope you didn't drink any water in Desag. Oh, by the way, Desaguadero means place of dirty water in Spanish. You did get vaccinations for Yellow Fever, Hepatitis, and Typhoid? I sure hope so. Every good meteorite hunter should. Consider yourself lucky that you were not arrested and thrown in jail by my friends in Desaguadero. I think you'll recognize a few of your new friends. Major Victor Anaya Barrientos, police chief and my personal drinking buddy Sargent Enrique. You threatened to fuck me up, Mike. Remember? I could have had you arrested and held in jail on various charges. But I'm not vengeful guy, more of a peace-loving kind. I offered to end this war and you failed to respond to me. I gave you the chance for us to work together on this, yet you chose to go it alone.You took my invitation as a threat. A gun in your face in Columbia. Get the picture? Leave South America to me, but work with me if you want. There a 4 more falls in Peru that haven't been tapped and others in Bolivia and Ecuador. I'm enclosing some pictures to remind you of your trip. You went with 2 other guys, yet I went there alone. Just another day in the life of a meteorite hunter, huh? Toughen up Mike! BTW, I've got a little over 4,700 gms, not including the dust and small pieces. But I'm only selling around 300 gms. The large piece will be donated to a museum or other scientific institution. I appreciate the fact that you enlightened me about meteorites 'rotting'. I'm going back to Desag very soon to work with the local officials. I'm taking mining engineers to create a plan for extraction. If you want to be a part of it, I invite you to participate. As a meteorite dealer, you can also appreciate the value of what might come out of the ground. You have a real appreciation for this meteorite now and you could contribute to this project, but please don't criticize these people. The have there jobs and probably do them well. They are venturing into unknown territory with little information or experience. Hasta La Vista, Baby! or my associate. Your choice. Randall Michael Farmer wrote: Hi everyone, I am writing from an undisclosed location, but will be home tomorrow night from Peru. Robert Ward, Moritz Karl, and myself have been in Carancas for the last 4 days. When I say craphole, Desaguadero is the definition that would come up first! More on that later, we had to get creative today to leave town as the corrupt police had us all staked out all night, including visits to my hotel room last night and at 5 am this morning demanding payment for protection and permision to leave the country. We toured the crater for days, bought and found some nice material, and will post photos in a couple of days. The crater is huge, the meteorite inside must weigh in excess of 4000-5000 kilos. Compared
Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos
The name of the village closest to the crater site is CARANCAS, not Carnacas. Under the naming convention, the nearest named human settlement would end up as the name of the meteorite when all the dust settles, no? Let's all practice: CA - RAN - CAS. Sterling K. Webb - - Original Message - From: Michael L Blood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Michael Farmer [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Chris Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Meteorite List meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 11:33 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos Perhaps I am dumber than a bag of hammers, but I am confused Are Carnacas and Titicaca two separate falls Or one in the same? Is anyone else confused on this issue? Michael on 10/2/07 5:59 PM, Michael Farmer at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Chris, it is a hell of a crater, at least 13 meters in diameter, more than one meter of uplift, looks identical to Meteor Crater to me, on a much smaller scale. There in fact does seem to be shocked material at the crater, I found only inside and just outside the crater, large pieces of compacted sandstone, yet there is no sandstone there, it seems to have solidified on the impact, everything else is more like soft mud. Large, and I mean larger pieces of sod, weighing at least 40 or 50 kilograms were thrown more than 50-100 meters, and smaller dirt clod debris thrown up to 15o meters in all directions. This is a serious impact, I mean you can call it what you want, but with the uplift, the incredible debris field thrown to all sides, the huge size, and volume of the crater itself, certainly leads me to believe that the mass weighed many tons and is obviously in the hole under some meters of fallback debris. The locals report mushroom cloud lingered for more than a hour. As far as more pieces, this meterite came in over lake Titikaka, and if you have never seen this lake, it is HUGE! I would guess that as fragil as the meteorite is, that tons of debris fell off but would most likely have all fallen into the lake, or perhaps some on the mountains just inside of Bolivia. It is not populated there, and I assume from talking to most witnesses, that the large main mass, which was a massive ball of fire much larger and brighter than the Sun, caught everyones attention pretty well, and would be so bright that smaller pieces would be drowned out by the intensity of the main mass. That is what I think happened, surely many more pieces broke off but from where the main mass hit, back down the flightpath is nothing but swamps and high mountains for about 10 miles, then 15 miles of lake. Perfect for most material to be lost. Michael Farmer --- Chris Peterson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What remains to be determined is if this is actually a crater, or just a big splash. In the first case, some shocked material should show up, and I think it's likely that nothing is left in the bottom. If there really is a big meteorite at the bottom, then this probably isn't a crater in the usual sense (that is, produced by a large energy release as the parent body explodes/vaporizes). I don't believe I've seen anything credible to suggest that the water was actually boiling or steaming. It doesn't take much energy to make a hole this size in soft ground- probably around 100 kg TNT equivalent. And that's not enough to heat up that much water very much. So I expect that any apparent bubbling was nothing more than an effect of ground water filling in the new hole. If the recovered material is shocked fragments, it may be structurally quite different from the parent body. Chris * Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com - Original Message - From: Darren Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 5:37 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Carnacas smoke-trail photos On Tue, 2 Oct 2007 15:54:57 -0700 (PDT), you wrote: Is it indeed possible that a mass of say 3-7 tons could cause such intense heat on impact? We think that the compression of the soil, in an instant to many meteors deep could also cause intense heating. Every person we interviewed decribed boiling water, lots of steam, and horrible sulfer type smell. The What I wonder is if maybe the pressure/heat could have caused dissolved gases to bubble out from the water? So it might not have been at a boiling temperature, but still bubbling/steaming? Too bad we don't have samples of the groundwater and soil from the area to see if there is anything weird/extensively poluted about it. Also odd, of course, is a fraglie, porus stone as you describe surviving to the ground big enough and fast enough to make the crater. __ Meteorite-list mailing list
[meteorite-list] Peru's Geological Institute: Crater Where Meteorite Landed is to Disappear in 2 Months
http://www.livinginperu.com/news-4827-environmentnature-perus-geological-institute-crater-where-meteorite-landed-is-disappear-2-months (LIP-ir) -- Peru's Geological, Mining and Metallurgical Institute (INGEMMET) announced today that the crater left by the meteorite that landed in a small town in Puno, Peru would disappear in two or three months. Experts estiamted that the crater would be gone within this time because of the accumulation of dirt and water in the hole itself. They stated that the accumulation would be due to the rainy season this region of Peru is experiencing. Director of Geology for Peru´s INGEMMET, Hernando Nuñez del Prado, stated that the roof which was to be built could keep the crater safe from the intense rain. He stated that the rain would increase the river's activity, thus causing it to directly affect the crater. There will be no evidence that a meteorite had landed there, said Nuñez del Prado. The specialist said he was sorry because he knew that locals wanted the crater to be a tourist attraction. Nuñez del Prado requested that no unauthorized person get close to the area where the meteorite had landed. He explained that the next two months should be dedicated to a serious investigation and a scientific study of the area. After thesestudies are done, the specialist stated that scientists would search for and retrieve the meteorite which is several meters below the earth. In addition, he explained that an attempt to extract the water from the crater would not be made because it would be impossible. He stated that the earth was saturated with water and the crater would always be full. __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
