Meteorite Times Magazine Contents by Editor
Featured Articles Accretion Desk by Martin Horejsi Jim’s Fragments by Jim Tobin Meteorite Market Trends by Michael Blood Bob’s Findings by Robert Verish Micro Visions by John Kashuba Norm’s Tektite Teasers by Norm Lehrman Mr. Monning’s Collection by Anne Black IMCA Insights by The IMCA Team Meteorite of the Month by Editor Tektite of the Month by Editor
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Meteorite Times Magazine A Pair of Oriented “Bakesale Juancheng” Meteorites by Martin Horejsi
In celebration of the publication release of Michael Blood’s new book titled Aspects of Meteorite Orientation I thought I would share a couple oriented specimens I picked up in Tucson years ago. They were part of a set of Juancheng individuals that were collected by school children and later sold as a fundraiser for the school. I sold all of the pieces with documentation as what I called “Bakesale Juancheng” specimens since they were collected specifically to be resold in Tucson by a Chinese mineral dealer who would carry back the money to the school after the show. According to the Meteoritical Bulletin… Juancheng Shandong Province, China Fell 1997 February 15, 23:23:35 Beijing time (15:23:35 UT) Ordinary chondrite (H5)
A shower of small stones (>1000 individuals) fell near the Yellow River after a brilliant fireball with smoke and sparks terminated in a loud, resonating explosion. The fall ellipse measured ~10.5 ´ 4.3 km, oriented east-west. The largest recovered piece weighed 2.7 kg, and the total mass is >100 kg. One fragment was reported to have penetrated a roof and landed in a pot on a stove. This meteorite has been widely traded and sold under the unofficial name Heze. Classification and mineralogy (Chen Yonghen and Wang Daode, GIG; Wang Ruitian, HBS; A. Rubin, UCLA;): olivine, Fa19.0–19.2; pyroxene, Fs16.9Wo0.1; plagioclase heterogeneous, An9–33Ab63–84Or3–12; kamacite contains 0.36–0.47 wt% Co; shock stage S2. Specimens: 35 kg, DPitt; ~1 kg, ZMAO; ~1 kg, BeiAP.
These two oriented specimens are little gems that forever hold the impressive features of hypersonically carved rock that only atmospheric reentry creates. From the tip of the leading face, to the vacuum-formed underbelly, these Juanching jewels are not only collectable meteorites, but also pleasant memories of meteorite adventures.
A classic pincushion shaped oriented stone meteorite. The little bit of cloth tape scars the surface with a weight, but since this “Bakesale� stone carries with it a human story, the tape remains as testament to the students who started this stones earthly journey in the same question most student bake cupcakes and cookies.
It’s hard to believe that this side of the specimen is even on the same planet let alone same stone as the traditional oriented shell of the leading edge. Smooth, bubbly abrupt, melted. It is if someone took a knife and sliced the meteorite in half. I suspect there was some upper atmospheric breakage given the harsh 90 degree edges, but there was still plenty of time in the meteorite’s fall to make only primary fusion crust during the fall.
This shield shape is another classic form borne out of a fiery arrival to earth. Displacing the intense forces of reentry gravity in the most economical way possible ablates a meteorite into a perfect shape for dissipating energy over the greatest surface area.
In addition to the smooth underbelly, a rollover rim is visible where molten rock flowed off the leading surface and wrapped itself under the meteorite being pushed into the low pressure region formed as the stone fell at hypersonic speed without tumbeling.
A side view of the rollover rim also shows some rippling as the waves of liquid stone lapped up against the shores of stones sourrounding the meteorite during the few brief moments before the icy stratosphere forever froze the stone solid preserving the motion as a trace fossil of cosmic physics.
‌Until next time‌next year ( ; – }
Meteorite Times Magazine Shooting Stars Has a Different Meaning This Year by James Tobin Well, it would just seem wrong to report on vacation without something about meteorites. But, the fact of the matter is we did nothing meteorite related on vacation this year. We are so busy with meteorites the rest of the time that we have taken a big break from them for our autumn trips. I have spent the last several month doing some unusual things with meteorites. We had one individual that wanted cubes of a dozen different meteorites so that marbles could be produced from them. I know some of the readers may not relate to this but it is hard to find that many stones that have a perfect crack or fracture free area that will make them safe for hard grinding in a sphere making machine. It might at first seem to be easy to find a cubic inch of perfect meteorite. But to find over a dozen form different falls as the order ended up being got tough. You can forget about most of the normal NWA type stones they have cracks and flaws or they are smaller individuals. I did not want to cut up some of the really nice material at first but ended up cutting some to get enough different stones. I thought when the order came in that it would just take a few hours to produce the cubes. It actually took me a very long hard fifteen hour day to get them all cut and evened up. It was an interesting challenge and as I look back now that I am removed from the situation something I will remember for a long time with some pride.
These are two of the meteorites that made the cut so to speak for the marble project. Nice solid stones with not cracks and very attractive. The side benefit of that project was dozens of pieces of meteorite that are now ready for cut down further for sell. All the edges and trims are ready to slice and dice into pieces for the business. Right on the heels of that order was an order for a large slice to be used in classroom demonstration. It was an order well outside of the size I usually have to cut. But, we had been holding onto a 19 kg stone for a while and it was a solid piece. It was too large for my biggest saw to cut all the way through in a single pass. I had to take off an end piece in a single slice. Then make a steel angle wall that the flat surface created by removing the endpiece could rest against. Now I could rotate the large stone through the blade while it was aligned and supported by my barrier. I was able to take two more slices off the stone each getting bigger. Now I could make the actual slice for the customer. I tell you supporting by hand a 19 kg stone and holding it firmly against a side barrier and also pushing and rotating it in a saw for the time that it takes to make four cuts was a work out. It took about two hours to make the cuts and I was covered in brown sticky meteorite mud from head to toe. The garage was covered in splash from the saw out several feet. And all my machine tools had to be cleaned of mud, but I ended up with a large slice for the customer plus three smaller ones and an endpiece off a stone that needed to be cut. Especially after all the years we had been holding on to it. The next challenge was to grind and polish the large slice. It was way too big for my
rotating lap. The vibrating lap is 28 inches in diameter so it was large enough but it would take forever to do there and the poor slice would have to run in a wet environment for about two weeks on each side. So what to do. I drew from my mirror grinding past and set up a steel plate and grinding grits and got a comfortable chair and proceeded to grind the faces smooth. This worked ok but was going to take a long time. As I was working I thought I could use my diamond lapping disks as subdiameter grinders like is done on large telescope mirror grinding and the diamond would work much faster then the aluminum oxide. I held the slice in place so it could not slide around and using my 180 grit diamond lapping disk I quickly ground the surfaces flat. It took a few hours but the results were very good. The customer had told us little except it was for hand examination in a public demonstration setting. So I chose to smooth one side to a nice satin sheen that showed off the chondrules well and to high polish the other side. But how to polish it was the issue. But, it was not much of a problem as it turned out. I took long strips of my diamond impregnated polishing film and laid them side by side and taped them down with a thin layer of cushioning underneath and began polishing. It took a couple more hours but the results were impressive. The slice was mirror bright and I hoped large enough for the customer’s needs.
Paul told me later that the man was very happy so I am too. Days of cleaning and windowing and polishing meteorites fill some of my weeks but I have been carving out a lot of time over the last six month to get ready for the big Astrophotography Vacation of 2013. Paul and I have been doing astrophotography for nearly 20 years together. But, with growing kids and bills to pay both of us put it on hold for several years. We started in March and April getting equipment and making things we needed and testing in the back yard. All to get ready for the first week of October. Armed with a new laptop computer loaded with astrophotography software and Photoshop and a big hard drive I was ready. I had researched storage batteries, and we had gotten 75 amp hour AGM batteries that we were confident would last the night with all the stuff we were going to run off them. I had a new scope for just photography. We got dual axis motor mounts with GoTo capability and computer control. We picked what turned out to be one of the most popular and wonderful autoguiding set ups around. We bought smaller scopes to use for the autoguiding. I think we were both determined to do this right finally and for me that meant no garage machined substitutes for economy. I had built clockwork trackers for twenty years and they were just not going to get me where I wanted to go now in astrophotography. But a fast astrograph scope on a state of the art computer guided mount would I hoped. But, I know enough to know that astrophotography has a way of becoming a black hole that could demand more and more when ever your glance wondered to one side. So for now I would try to contain myself to a single scope for as many objects as I could capture. It would be great for medium size objects. At 10 inches of aperture lots of light grasp. Fast so shorter exposures on tough objects and longer exposures too with the autoguiding as precise as it is. But, it would not get the objects that are really large completely in a picture. The Andromeda Galaxy a longtime goal was not going to be possible except in pieces put together as a mosaic. But, other lifetime goals to photograph were going to be within its range. Paul and I made a trip to a container store and got some plastic tubs to hold the growing list of essentials for our trip. We got heavy duty plastic tubs with lids to make into power distribution boxes. After a long day’s work I got a 1 to 4 12v automotive power adapter, my 300 watt 12v DC to 110 AC inverter and input plugs and an on/off switch and fuse mounted in the tub ready to provide power from the main battery to all my devices out in the desert. Paul built a similar power box for himself designed to meet his needs and desires. It was fun to see how we approached the same problem with different solutions. We both began writing long lists of things we could not survive without. The lack of a single special cable and something would not work that was essential. I am not used to being so regimented and having to meets such standards of remembering things. As it turned out we forgot nothing that was essential and had enough extra to overcome many difficulties that arose. Finally, the day arrived and we headed out to six days of astrophotography with a clear understanding on both our parts that we were not interested in meteorites this trip. It was astronomy alone. We even were heading to a facility dedicated to only
astronomy to do our work. At large observing site with observatory building everywhere and concrete pads with electricity for those that need it and for us an area where the motorhome could be parked and where we could set up to take pictures without any white lights at all.
And thus begins the trip to perdition and back again. We have never had a trip with so many ups and downs. Never a trip where the downs were as deep and the triumphs so high. We parked, aligned the motorhome to allow us to view the part of the sky we were interested in mostly and we set up the scopes. Everything perfect. Tables arranged so we could work without disturbing the other and yet so we could talk and enjoy the nights. There was this cloud on the mountain to the south of us. We were watching it as the afternoon got late on to evening. It was slowly coming our way. The reports were that we would have a couple nights of wind and maybe tonight would be OK. The wind coming the next day they said. Well the sun went down and we were about to start work. It was dark but only for a moment. All of a sudden there was a beam of light a billion candle power bright shining right in my eyes. It was coming from a house of one of the people living next to the no light facility and it was aimed right at where we had parked. My temperature was rising along with my frustration and after a few minutes I took the scope off my mount and carried it to the other side of the motorhome where the light was blocked. Then with no real regard for the weight. I put my mount with
counterweights and all on my shoulder and carried it in the dark to the other side as well. Suffered later for that. I gradually moved the battery and power box and card table and computer over as well. I put the scope back on and balanced it. Realigned to the north celestial pole and tried to get started again in the shadow behind the motorhome. Just then my glasses broke. The scew came out of the left lens and I was without vision that would be very useful. The zipper on the side of my cold weather suit broke and came open from the waist down one leg to the ankle. So I duct taped it up and would fix it in the morning along with my glasses. Remember that cloud I mentioned. Well, it had decided to stall right over us and dump more dew than I have ever seen. Just as I am get back ready to go things begin fogging up and getting wet. In an hour I am so wet that I am scared I will get shocked to death when I turn off the inverter. I am wiping off the lens of the guide scope so often I can not get any decent length exposures. Paul has stayed on the other side of the motorhome and the light went out just about as I got reset up. For a moment I wondered if it had been worth moving. The answer came soon as the light came back on and the words “motion sensor� came to both our minds. This was going to be a recurring event all week. He fought it out and got some images since he had not lost time moving his equipment. But, the dew finally won and we covered the scopes shut down the power and called it a night. The next day brought us wind. It was kind of a continuous breeze all day and we hoped it was like what we had experienced many times before. A wind that would settle down after dark when the air cooled off. But, as we sat at our computers with red screens glowing the wind was not settling down. It was growing in fury, until it was roaring down the hill behind us like a relentless freight train. About half the exposures I took were bad because of the wind blowing around my scope. And all the exposures were short only 30 seconds. Being a short Newtonian with a big aperture it was like the windsock at an airport. The wind blew into it and buffeted it around so that stars were blobs of light instead of pin points. We took images in the hope that some would be good and we would have something to work on the next day to practice processing. The wind was not going to be stopping the weather report said, instead it was going to get worse. Gusts to 45 miles an hour and sustained winds of 25-35 miles an hour as I remember for our third day. Discouragement was knocking hard at the door of my heart. But, I tried to keep a good hope. I fixed my glasses with a twist tie from our loaf of bread, using it to hold the frame around the lenses tight. I used another to hold the broken end of the long zipper closed so the teeth could not disengage again. I would permanently fix both at home. Problems were by no means over yet. For then the worst happened. We had been sitting at the table in the motorhome working on the images we did get and had just taken a break. Paul was outside going down to the group house when as I watched out the window of the motorhome a gust blew his scope over. I yelled for him from inside but as I got outside he was already there administering what first aid he could.
Our covers are water proof and dust proof and yet breath to prevent moisture from being trapped so rather than bring the cold camera in and promote dew and condensation issues he had left it attached. The T-adapter had snapped apart and saved the camera but the scope was not as lucky. The big dew shield and hood was smashed. It could be reshaped at home and made to work out in the field but it was not the worst part. The objective lens was all out of whack and misaligned. But, he dared not try and work on it in the field. How would he take pictures now? He had gotten a very good reviewed telephoto lens for his Canon and the camera was still working though he would have to use his other T-ring adapter. So he worked on figuring out how to mount the camera within the rings of the scope cage and aiming it to the same place as the guidescope. His finder had taken the most damage with its mounting rings really mushed out of shape and two of the adjustment screws broken clean off. His scope has a much smaller profile then mine I would have expected mine to go over first but mine is significantly heavier so I guess that kept mine upright. We did not even try to go out that night as the wind ripped past us and roared around us. Paul fought some focus and other problems through the forth night which was quite still but had intermittent clouds. We were able to shoot though holes in the clouds and I got some good shots that night. We decided that with all the difficulties we had had so far we had better stay up. The plan had been to get up late for after sleeping in one of the nights and shoot the object that rose before dawn. We might not get the next night to do that. So we shot Orion and all its wonderful objects and the Pleiades and finally went to bed at 5:30 am.
This is the great shot Paul got with his camera lens of the whole area of Orion.
Here is the image of the Flame Nebula and the Horsehead Nebula that I took. The batteries had certainly had the capacity we hoped. We had run them for like 11 hours and they were still going fine. We processed images after waking up and Paul had gotten a great shot of the whole Orion area with the lens he had been able to use on his Canon. But it was not the telephoto. So early afternoon was brain storming time to figure out how to mount and support and control zoom and focus drift on a long heavy telephoto lens. He needed to try it for astrophotography. We put all the dovetail mounting plates and 1/4 20 screw adapters we had into making a set up that ultimately let him take some remarkable images the last evening. Velcro strapping to further secure it and padding to keep from scratching it; the lenses was on the scope cage. Night five was a perfect night. Paul shot the Andromeda Galaxy with long exposures and lots of them. Later he shot The Great Orion Nebula and the area of the Horsehead and Flame nebulas around Alnitak the left most of the three stars in Orion’s Belt.
Here is Paul’s wonderful shot of The Great Andromeda Galaxy. I shot the portion of Andromeda that would fit in the frame of my scope. Unfortunately it was not focused perfect and it is not as nice as Paul’s since it is just a section of the middle. I took images of several other objects as I waited for another chance at Orion. I had gotten good shots the night before but looked forward to taking others framed differently. I had images of the Pleiades and the Iris Nebula and the Lagoon and Trifid. And just off from those last two I had gotten a good number of images of M17 another nebula. It was not the best time of year for those they were all low and in the glow of the city to the south of us but they were objects I could shoot early before other things came over the motorhome that blocked not just the billion watt light but also the eastern sky. We stayed up until the same time again and got 12 or more hours out of the batteries which we recharged each day. We processed images and Paul’s Andromeda was among the nicest I have ever seen, same for his Orion area shot. I have spent my life wanting to get a great shot of the Great Orion Nebula. And I did as I sat there in the dark with the computer screen covered in red plastic and the programs that will run in red doing that. I about fell off my chair when the first of my two minute ISO 800 images of Orion came up. I had one minute ISO 1600 shots the night before and though the depth is theoretically the same the first one from the second good night was so wonderful I will remember seeing it for ever. Paul and I almost gasped at what appeared on the computer screen. Now my problem is to learn how to process out the tremendous amount of data I have so it looks the best
it can. That is the hard work for me. Paul will always be better at that and certainly has been so far. But, I hope you enjoy this shot.
We did no meteorite related stuff on this vacation. But, we began satisfying a long held desire to photograph some of the wonders of the universe that we have enjoyed through visual telescopes for decades. Time to go clean some more meteorites so we have them to sell to others who love the things of the universe beyond our homeworld.
Meteorite-Times Magazine Meteorite Market Trends by Michael Blood Like
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Meteorite Times Magazine Ibitira by John Kashuba Ibitira is the exception that nags us when we introduce people to the appearance of meteorites versus meteor wrongs. We like to say that if it has bubbles it isn’t the real thing, thus dismissing slag, lava and their cousins. But Ibitira and a few other exceptional meteorites do have vesicles. Ibitira is exceptional also in that it is a eucrite not from Vesta. Vestoids are, by far, the largest of five groups of asteroidal basaltic meteorites believed each to have come from a distinct parent body: Vesta – HED suite – howardite, eucrite, diogenite Ibitira eucrite – and possibly NWA 2824 diogenite Angrites – a small group, diverse yet related to each other NWA 011 achondrite-ung – and pairings NWA 2400, 2976, 4901, 4587, 5644, 7129 Mesosiderites – but maybe also Vestian Here are some photos of Ibitira.
Ibitira is mostly pyroxene, the brightly colored mineral grains. Plagioclase appears white to gray, sometimes mottled and elongated. Field of view is 3 mm wide. Thin section in cross-
polarized light.
The large black oval zones are vesicles, bubble holes. Field of view is 3 mm wide. Ibitira Eucrite-mmict, thin section in cross-polarized light.
The parallel lines in the pyroxene show that two types of pyroxene have exsolved, that is they have unmixed. Here they are the calcium poor species, pigeonite and the calcium rich species, augite. Fields of view are 0.3 mm wide. Ibitira Eucrite-mmict, thin section in crosspolarized light.
Some smaller black areas are opaque minerals; other black areas are mineral grains in optical extinction because of the orientation of the crossed polarizing filters relative to their crystal lattices. Field of view is 3 mm wide. Ibitira Eucrite-mmict, thin section in crosspolarized light.
In plane polarized light we see which grains are actually opaque. Field of view is 3 mm wide. Ibitira Eucrite-mmict, thin section in plane-polarized light.
Opaque minerals in Ibitira include the iron titanium oxide, ilmenite; the iron chromium oxide, chromite; the iron sulfide, troilite; and iron-nickel metal. Field of view is 0.3 mm wide. Thin section in plane-polarized light.
Opaque material and stained transparent grains. Ibitira Eucrite-mmict, thin section in planepolarized light.
In incident light we see that the dog shaped object is a bleb of metal and is the reason for the staining. Ibitira Eucrite-mmict.
A small assemblage of fine mineral grains. Ibitira Eucrite-mmict, thin section in crosspolarized light.
A small assemblage of fine mineral grains. Ibitira Eucrite-mmict, thin section in planepolarized light.
A 24 mm wide slice of Ibitira. The vesicles are visible.
Meteorite Times Magazine Egyptian Dakhleh Glass by Norm Lehrman Find a map of Egypt and put a pin right in the center. You’ll find yourself in one of the most remote human settlements in Egypt, way out in the Western Desert about 400 kilometers west of Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. Dakhleh Oasis occupies the basin of an ancient lake, the site of human habitation going back some 200,000 years or more.
Figure 1: Possible Dakhleh glass spindle bomb highly reminiscent of NĂśrdlinger Ries flaedle. In 1987, University of Toronto anthropologist Maxine Kleindienst reported the discovery of peculiar lumps of vesiculated glass in the lake sediments of the Dakhleh Basin. Subsequent investigations have shown this material to be meteorite-related impact glass, possibly the result of a monster aerial burst, something like Tunguska, but much more intense (The Tunguska event did not vitrify the underlying ground surface at all). Dakhleh glass is highly similar to Argentine Escoria. Some specimens are also very similar to the impact melt glass bombs of Nordlinger Ries (figure 1).
The airburst suggestion arises from the distribution of the glass, scattered over an area of about 400 square kilometers (too extensive for typical cratering events) and the absence of any recognized impact crater. The best radiometric date for the event is 145,000 years +/- 19,000. Evidence of human habitation is found in layers stratigraphically above and below the glass-bearing strata, showing that humans were on hand to see and experience this event (certainly not a good thing for anyone that was too close!).
Figure 2: Lower surface showing clear reed-like plant impressions. Dakhleh glass is quite variable. Smaller pieces tend to be highly vesiculated while bigger lumps can be mostly crystalline and dense. The glass is chemically distinctive, being unusually rich in calcium and aluminum (up to 25% and 18 wt% respectively). This composition is consistent with derivation from calcarious and clay-rich lake sediment target material. It contains small enclaves of very high silica glass (lechatelierite) which forms at temperatures greater than 1700 degrees C. Interestingly, about one third of the pieces show imprints of plant matter (marsh reeds?) on their basal surface (see figure 2), indicating that the original blobs of bubbly glass rained from above and were still of sufficiently low viscosity to mold over the plants they landed on. There is also sometimes seen a flow-stretching to the vesicles and a tendency for them to be present in greater abundance near the upper surface of a given specimen, again indicating fluid behavior that allowed the
bubbles to stretch and rise.
Figure 3: Basal surface showing spheroids, reportedly consisting of immiscible droplets of calcite or pyrrhotite. The material resembles coal clinkers with smooth ropy surfaces and a highly vesiculated interior. (The presence of lechatelierite distinguishes it from some sort of ancient clinker). The interior color is brownish gray to black. Rare specimens show spherical beads up to 5 mm in diameter (see figure 3). While it is tempting to compare these with microtektites or larger impact spherules, studies to date indicate that they are mono-mineralic pyrrhotite or calcite which most likely formed
as immiscible droplets in the molten glass. Prismatic cavities in the basal surface appear to be spots where lake-bottom mud-chips have weathered out (remnants are locally present). Recent investigations of Trinitite glasses from the initial atom bomb test in New Mexico suggest that the glass there did not form by in situ fusion of the crater wall as has been commonly supposed, but instead rained down as vitrified blobs of target material that was initially drawn up into the mushroom cloud (Eby et al, 2010). The Dakhleh glass and Argentine escorias are remarkably similar in morphology to Trinitite, and indeed, the basal plant imprints directly imply that the glass rained down from above. One is led to picture an immense mushroom-cloud aerial burst that literally vacuumed material from the ground beneath, melted it in the heart of the turbulent fireball, and rained it back to earth. References Eby, N., Hermes, R., Charnley, N. and Smoliga, J. A., 2010, Trinitite-the atomic rock. Geology Today, v. 26: pp. 180-185. Osinski, G.R., Haldemann, A.F.C., Schwarcz, H.P., Smith, J.R., Kleindienst, M.R., Kieniewicz, J., and Churcher, C.S., 2007, Impact Glass at the Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt: Evidence for a Cratering Event or Large Aerial Burst?, Lunar & Planetary Sci., v. 38.
Meteorite Times Magazine GLEN ROSE and SQUAW CREEK by Anne Black
All documentation is Property of the Monnig Collection – TCU Somervell County, about 55 miles (almost 90 km) south-west of Fort Worth, is the second smallest county in Texas, famous for some of the best preserved dinosaur tracks along the Paluxy River in the central part of the county and also for having been a big producer of moonshine during Prohibition, according to the Texas State Historical Society website.
It is also famous for the 3 irons meteorites that have been found there and, surprisingly considering how small that county is, they are not paired or even from the same classification: Somervell County is a Pallasite, Glen Rose is an Ungrouped Fine Octahedrite and Squaw Creek is a IIAB anomalous. According to Mr. Monnig’s file, the first he heard of an iron meteorite in Somervell County appears to be this letter from a local reverend who seems unwilling to say much about it before knowing its monetary value. Since this was only 3 months after Mr. Monnig’s purchase of the Somervell County Pallasite, the reverend had probably heard that meteorites could be valuable.
All documentation is Property of the Monnig Collection – TCU And there is nothing further in the file about that one meteorite. However Harvey Nininger apparently saw it in 1936 since he wrote about it in 1937 (Catalogue of Meteorites). Then things got a little more complicated in Somervell County, and it should be noted that this file is labeled “Glen Rose and Squaw Creek”. Yes, another iron meteorite had been found there by a Mr. Georges Nystel further to the northwest, close to the border with Hood County, but no more than 3 miles (5 km) from where the first one had been found. Mr. Monnig immediately made plans to go see it as these notes show. They are not dated but it was probably in May 1980. Mr. Monnig does specify that the meteorite had been ploughed up 3 months prior in a field, so the meteorite was probably found in February of 1980.
All documentation is Property of the Monnig Collection – TCU His next letter is addressed to Doyle Cooper of Glen Rose who apparently had facilitated the transaction and Mr. Monnig now had one more meteorite in his collection.
All documentation is Property of the Monnig Collection – TCU And he immediately contacted Glenn Huss, then residing in Denver, to tell him about his new meteorite, and to have it cut and to give it a “liberal soaking in ethyl alcohol�. He also notes that he has finally sold the family store and that he will have more time for meteorites.
All documentation is Property of the Monnig Collection – TCU But before sending the meteorite, that he had not named yet, he asked a professional photographer to take pictures. It would seem that he liked the result since he kept a large print in the file. He also sent that picture to quite a few people; the first one was Glenn Huss, along with a chatty letter only part of it being about this new meteorite. Here is the picture, and the letter dated August 3, 1980.
All documentation is Property of the Monnig Collection – TCU
All documentation is Property of the Monnig Collection – TCU Mr. Nystel, the finder and original owner of the meteorite also received a picture; the letter accompanying it is particularly interesting since Mr Monnig announces there his plans to donate his collection to the Texas Christian University.
All documentation is Property of the Monnig Collection – TCU Mr. Cooper received a very similar letter but with additional “technical” details. And this is where the two irons are finally compared; they were found very close to each other but Glenn Huss had looked at both and decided that they were different. Mr. Monnig concluded that “there must be hundreds around” and finding them was “largely a matter of luck”. An observation most meteorite-hunters can relate to.
All documentation is Property of the Monnig Collection – TCU Dr. John Wasson indeed studied both meteorites. He classified Squaw Creek as an Iron, Anomalous, IIA, and it was then published as such in the Meteoritical Bulletin #62 in 1984, while Glen Rose was published as an Iron Ungrouped. And both had received the names suggested by Mr. Monnig in a letter to Dr. Wasson:
All documentation is Property of the Monnig Collection – TCU
Cut face of the Squaw Creek meteorite. Picture in Mr. Monnig’s file. All documentation is Property of the Monnig Collection – TCU
Meteorite Times Magazine Meteorite of the Month by Editor Happy 2nd Anniversary, MPOD! Our Meteorite of the Month is kindly provided by Tucson Meteorites who hosts The Meteorite Picture of the Day.
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Once a few decades ago this opening was a framed window in the wall of H. H. Nininger's Home and Museum building. From this window he must have many times pondered the mysteries of Meteor Crater seen in the distance. Photo by Š 2010 James Tobin