Contents
Featured Articles
Accretion Desk by Martin Horejsi
Jim's Fragments by Jim Tobin
Micro Visions by John Kashuba
Mitch's Universe by Mitch Noda
MeteoriteWriting by Michael Kelly
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This 22g slice of the Peekskill meteorite from the author's collection contains rich crust, and enough matrix to see just how much action is going on inside this H6 stone.
About 100 miles separates Titusville, NJ and Peekskill, NY. So why does that matter? Well in 1992, those of us who got excited about meteorites back then were able to follow the events surrounding the fall of the Peekskill meteorite. And the Peekskill meteorite was preceded by the Peekskill fireball that was captured by no less than 16 video cameras. Now 1992 was over 30 years ago, and there were far fewer video cameras back then. But still, it was a very well documented event.
"I'll Be Back" and East Coast Meteorites: Remembering 30 years ago with Peekskill.
Martin Horejsi
Cut to today, and the dust is still settling on the Titusville meteorite event where a chondrite of the LL class is accused of breaking and entering a residence in the Hopewell Township of New Jersey. The slightly sub-kg stone has a classic look with rich black fusion crust and a milky white matrix mixed with darker regions and what look like shock veins. And frankly, of all the varieties of meteorites, this new fall has some visual similarities to the matrix of the Peekskill stone.
In both cases, the initial discoverer of the meteorite reported it being warm to the touch. This phenomenon is challenged by science, but is still commonly reported by the finders. Whether a real or perceived sensory experience, history leans towards the former while physics points towards the latter. And NASA is convinced that freshly fallen meteorites cannot pop corn upon arrival.
Thirty years from now will be 2053. Imagine at that time that a stone meteorite crashes into a man-made object like a house or car, in the heavily populated northeast USA. When that happens, you will be thinking about it the same way I am thinking about Titusville now having experienced the thrill of the Peekskill event. Hard to imagine, I know, because the world will be in a very different situation in 2053. There’s an average chance I’ll still be around then, so stay tuned for a follow up to this article in three decades.
Until next time….
One Person's Treasure Another Person's Junk
James TobinI have spent a good deal of time in the deserts of the Southwestern United States during my life. It was a favorite thing of my parents to visit and dig in the abandoned mining camps and ghost towns of California, Arizona, and Nevada. It was a family tradition that I was happy to continue as an adult. In the last several decades my trips have mostly involved hunting for meteorites. I have been pretty lucky at that too. With a couple of hundred meteorite pieces found and a couple of new locations discovered by me.
Something else that is fun accompanies meteorite hunting. All the other stuff that you metal detect up out of the ground and the interesting things you see as you hike the desert and dry lake beds. Sometimes it is ephemera that is related to meteorites but more often it is old mining, military, or railroad artifacts. Some of it is just plain old junk and trash. Old motorcycle parts and car parts are usually just things to remove as trash from the area and throw away. Other stuff is worth keeping if you were trained as an archeologist and are now a hoarder of useless desert relics. The thousands of lead bullets recovered make for interesting and weighty displays in an office. Mixed into everything that one can find are a few nice antique things that stir the imagination. Who used it, and why were they at the place it was found?
Many people who have hunted at Holbrook for meteorites have found a glass marble. There is debate about where these came from. I like the bounced out of the freight car hauling the glass cullet across the country theory best. They make for a nice moment of fun when looking for increasingly scarce meteorites out at that famous location. The occasional musket ball is also there if you have a sharp eye. Only my imagination can guess why they are there.
Bits of old broken china and glassware are common things to find. Old glass was formulated with lead in the melt. Over time in the desert exposed to the sun the glass turns purple. It is rare to find a whole bottle but it does happen if you hunt long enough. You have to have a wider focus than just meteorites to see some of this other stuff. I love these old bottles and have written about them before. As a tektite collector the crazing of man made glass bottles after only a hundred years of exposure gives me much to think about. Glass is tough stuff but in the past, the ingredients were not mixed as well as in today's glass. The areas more susceptible to etching show very well sometimes. Tektites are often deeply and beautifully eroded by chemical etching. Of course, they had thousands or millions of years to be etched.
Railroad junk is always fun especially when the actual tracks were torn up 80 or 100 years ago and the remains are just a sand filled bump of rotting wooden ties in the middle of a dry lake miles from anywhere. Looking up the history of where the tracks came from and where they went is easier now with the internet and all the information that has been shared.
Visitors long ago were allowed to explore the area around Meteor Crater and the Ninninger Museum Ruin. There was fun junk there for the observant hunter. Across the tracks from Meteor Crater at the Sunshine Station location the remains of the station and platform are strewn about. It is where all the materials for the south rim drilling operation one hundred years ago were delivered by train. I doubt many people visit there anymore. But it is a fun stop when you are out at the crater. Especially if like me you enjoy walking in obscure historic locations. Meteor Crater and the area around are closed to hiking and exploring. You can not even drive down Old Route 66 anymore to get to the Ninninger Museum building's remains.
As a young kid, I always had my head down when hiking in the desert. Growing up part-time in Bullhead City in the mid-1960s there was nothing there to look up for. The population was probably a couple of hundred at the most. I hunted meteorites everywhere I walked. I did not drive yet but had some freedom to go where I wanted in the few miles nearby on my bike. One of my adventures got me out to Oatman and the ruins. The ghost town the last time I drove through it had a few businesses and a tourist trade. There was nothing there in the 1960s. At the end of town was the old mine and the remains of the head-frame and other wooden structures. Below that was the dry wash and I used to walk it looking for meteorites and artifacts. The area around our house was all basalt and quartzite cobblestones. The only sandy areas where I thought I might find a space rock were in the washes. The wash below the mine
ruins was also where the dump had washed out. The wash had junk and trash a hundred years old and unfortunately, no meteorites I could find as a kid. But it did have bottles and interesting other things. I was a collector of all interesting things and it probably annoyed my parents that I brought the "junk" home. I still have the wonderful objects today. But my collecting was their fault. My mother and father loved to dig in the old dumps of ghost towns looking for bottles. My brother and I of course had to dig too. I guess it got into our blood he became a geologist and I pursued archeology. Both of us diggers in the dirt.
I still have bottles I found as a kid. My father wanted to go to Chloride Cliffs which is a ghost town, a lot of mines, and an actual cliff. We never quite made it to the town with its dump. We had a flat on the truck and went back to town to have it fixed. We headed out again a little later in the day and had another flat and went back to town. On the third try we got part way and my parents decided it was too late to try and go all the way to the major mining area. We stopped at a cabin we passed on the dirt road and explored around it. Some cool stuff was there and we had fun and I found a complete small bottle. It might once have held perfume or medicine, impossible now to know what for sure.
After meteorite hunting for a weekend on Alkali Dry Lake, I persuaded the rest of the group to stop briefly at the old stamping mill up the road from Goldfield, Nevada. Always fun to go look at some abandoned mining sites. Some are working again out there now, but they were not back then. Along the sides of the dirt road I walked along to the stamping mill I found some pieces of oriental china and a fragment of a crucible used in assaying the rock. I would have liked to hunt for a long time for more little bits of old junk, but the rest of the party was eager to get to a big town and have pizza. And since I had found several pieces of weathered meteorite on Alkali the pizza and beer were on me.
Meteorite hunting can cost a little money to do. Sometimes you get a little break on the expenses. I have found coins on many dry lakes but my best day was finding a dollar bill in a rather deep crack at Lucerne Dry Lake, then later a dime. Of course, being a hoarder of things I did not spend them and put them on display in my office instead. It would have been nice to find a meteorite on Lucerne. I hunted there enough times I should have. But I never did.
Sometime all you find are old lead bullets lying on the surface of the dry lakes. I usually pick them up and take them home. It works out to a few hundred bullets for every meteorite found. On El Mirage Dry Lake I found no meteorites but a load of bullets. I put a few on display since Paul found the first meteorite ever recovered on El Mirage that day.
For me, all this stuff just heightens the fun and the memories of my meteorite-hunting adventures. The bottles of recovered bullets from trips. 50 caliber shells, ammo belt links, and armor-piercing slugs from Franconia were for a long time the only thing I found there. But finally, I started finding meteorites after many trips and weeks of hunting. That area can be annoying with all the bits of old target screens in the dirt. I learned a lot about metal detecting there and dug up a big pile of 50-cal bullets and learned to distinguish the sound the short lengths of screen wire made. It was one of the training areas in World War Two.
For many people this stuff is trash but for me, it is part of the fun. Good hunting.
Axtell CV3 New Sections
John KashubaTen years ago we took a look at this meteorite that was found south of Dallas, Texas in 1943. Here are some photos from new thin sections, all in cross- polarized light.
Axtell contains chondrules and chondrule-like objects around which dust and fine grains have coalesced and, perhaps, have sintered. Field of view is 6.3mm wide.
Barred olivine chondrule with a thick igneous rim, portions of which are in optical continuity with interior bars – both orange and blue.
A barred olivine chondrule with several sets of bars. The hint of hourglass geometry on the left side suggests crystallographic twinning.
James DuPont
Mitch NodaAmerican James Maxime DuPont (7 April 1912 – 1 July 1991) was an industrialist and passionate meteorite collector. His father was Jean Rene Claudius DuPont, a chemist. James DuPont was the founder and chairman of Thermoplastics Inc., a producer of plastic materials for various products. Plastic means pliable and easily shaped. DuPont did not invent plastic. In 1869, inspired by a New York fir’s offer of $10,000 to anyone who could provide a substitute for ivory, John Wesley Hyatt invented the first synthetic polymer. In 1907, Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite, the first fully synthetic plastic, meaning it contained no molecules found in nature. Bakelite was marketed as “the materials of a thousand uses.” Hyatt’s and Baekeland’s success led major chemical companies to invest in the research and development of new polymers or plastic. In 1948, James DuPont founded Thermoplastics Inc., in Warren, New Jersey, a successful plastics company
34 gram Lake Murray IIAB iron meteorite with hand painted DuPont number and DuPont label written filled out by James DuPont. Lake Murray is the oldest unaltered meteorite known. It was found in a layer of Antler Sandstone of the Lower Cretaceous period which was about 110 million years ago. The Lake Murray meteorite landed when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Lake Murray was found on a farm in 1933 and is the largest meteorite found in Oklahoma weighing 600 pounds (270 Kg).
The other side of the Lake Murray specimen with a Smithsonian label attached to it. When Lake Murray was first discovered, Dr. Lincoln LaPaz of the University of New Mexico confirmed that it was a meteorite. This special piece being the oldest unaltered meteorite known with a Smithsonian label, hand painted James DuPont number and hand written label has it all.
According to his son, Joe, James preferred to be called Jim. On 7 April 1912, Jim was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He dropped out of high school and enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve as a Radioman, third class. Joe DuPont, Jim’s son told me that while Jim was out to sea as a Naval Reservist, he saw a meteor fall into the sea. That began his fascination with meteorites. Jim collected many things like minerals, dueling pistols, meteorites and old watches.
Jim started out modestly with his meteorite collection, then he began adding to his collection in earnest. He would follow reports of possible meteorite falls or find and would fly off all over the world to acquire a new meteorite for his collection. His zeal for collecting was enormous, and he once paid for a marine diving operation to try and recover the meteorite that was seen falling into the east coast waters, but without success. Jim would go to Antarctica to hunt for meteorites.
Hand written letter from James DuPont to Elbert King (1935-1998). Elbert King earned a doctorate from Harvard, and worked at NASA training Apollo astronauts and becoming the first Lunar Sample Curator. Elbert King proposed how lunar samples should be collected, handled, preserved and stored under carefully controlled conditions to protect and preserve the moon rocks. He left NASA to join the faculty at the University of Houston where he chaired the Geosciences Department for many years. In the letter, DuPont is informing King about meteorites DuPont is sending him.
Jim was generous, and would donate specimens in his collection for research. He would alert labs to unusual samples he acquired. Jim would rescue meteorites from collectors, so they may be available to researchers instead of being locked up for decades. He was a financial underwriter for the Meteoritical Society in New York City.
Jim had many friends in the meteorite community. He was friends with Al Lang and Bob Haag (“Meteorite Man”). Joe, Jim’s son, recalled a story about Bob Haag in which Bob told Jim that he would dedicate a book about meteorites to him since Bob had overcharged Jim for some meteorites which assisted Bob in starting his meteorite business.
11.3 gram Lake Labyrinth LL6 meteorite with hand painted DuPont number on it. The Lake Labyrinth meteorite was found in South Australia in 1924 by an aboriginal only a couple of weeks after a probable fall, but most of the meteorite was found later in 1934 for a total of 25.8 kg.
At the time of Jim’s passing on 1 July 1991, Jim’s meteorite collection was the largest (nongovernmental) private collection in the world. After his passing, his family wanted to keep Jim’s meteorite collection intact, and donated the collection to the Planetary Studies Foundation, where it was known as the “James M. DuPont Meteorite Collection.” The impressive collection was collected over thirty years and contained 1,719 individual meteorites, with a total mass of over 500 kilograms with an estimated value of three million dollars. When the Planetary Studies Foundation (“PSF”), first acquired the collection, it stood at 970 with an additional 45 unclassified specimens. By acquiring new specimens though purchase, trades and field research, the collection grew.
In 2007, several of the Planetary Studies Foundation’s executive board members brought up the issue of responsibility to the DuPont family to preserve and protect the James M. DuPont Meteorite Collection. The PSF recognized that it did not have the infrastructure and financial base to guarantee the safety of the collection. A search began to establish a partnership with a major museum to preserve and protect the collection. In May 2015, the PSF senior scientist, Dr. Tony Irving, mentioned the possibility of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. The transfer from the PSF to the Yale Peabody Museum took place in two phases and was completed in 2019.
Page two of the DuPont meteorite collection catalogue. Check out the 22,287 grams of Allende. Meteorites from Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia also caught my eye.
The James M. DuPont Meteorite Collection is a valuable resource for researchers, as well as, an educational tool for the public. From May 1998 through June 2000, over 200 specimens from the collection was displayed at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Jim may be gone, but his legacy lives on through his exceptional meteorite collection.
References:
Phone calls and email with Joe DuPont, son of James Maxime DuPont.
Facebook page: James Maxine DuPont
The New York Times July 4, 1991 Obituaries
Wikipedia – James DuPont, Lake Murray meteorite and Lake Labyrinth meteorite
Science History Institute – “History and Future of Plastic”
SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System, Memorial for James Maxime DuPont, Meteoritics, Volume 27, No. 1, p. 105, E.J. Olsen
68th Annual Meteoritical Society Meeting (2005), Status of the James M. DuPont Meteorite Collection 1995 to 2004. P.P. Sipiera, K.J. Cole, J.R. Schwade, G.A. Jerman and B.D. Dod., Schmitt Meteorite Research Group, Harper College, Palatine, IL 60067 USA. psipiera@hapercollege.edu. Metallurgical Diagnostic Facility, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812 USA. Dept. of Physics and Earth Sciences, Mercer University, Macon, GA 31207 USA.
Met Bulletin – Lake Murray meteorite and Lake Labyrinth meteorite
Meteoritics & Planetary Science, vol. 34, p. 677 - Memorial for Elbert Aubrey King, Jr.
The Fall and Hunt of the “El Sauz” Bolide
Michael KellyOn 15 February 2023 at around 5:30 in the afternoon local time a small body entered the earth’s atmosphere above Texas. The American Meteor Society log of the event, 1036-2023 records only nine reports with no video or still photographs. Despite not standing out from the background of the other AMS log records, video capture of the prominent sonic boom, GOES-16 satellite capture, good seismic and great NEXRAD radar data from NOAA all pointed to this event being a good potential rock dropper. To boot this was all on the tail of a fall on the 14th in Italy, and one on the 13th in France, the first three day fall trifecta. Later data analysis from NASA added detail to the bolide event. Placing the asteroids weight at approximately 1000 pounds pre-atmospheric entry weight with an approach speed of around 27,000 miles per hour. The event released an equivalent energy of eight tons of TNT.
Information released on the fall so far has been sparser than on previous recent falls. Piecing together the shots posted to social media of stones in-situ and freshly collected show a nice light grey relatively uniform matrix of what looks to be an ordinary chondrite. I can’t pick out any large chondrules thought there is an overall lack of close up good shots of the material. I would hazard to guess it may be a H5 or H6. So far no release of even a ball parked TKW has come out, nor has there been made a stone count and associated data. Known finders include Robert Ward, Marc Fries, Phil Mani, Sonny Clary and Meredith Howse.
Fall Stats
The approximate total known weight so far is 5 Kgs.
Total stones found, I have heard about ten
The type specimen has been submitted to the Monnig Collection at TCU for classification.
Q and A with the finders:
Finder: Marc Fries
You work with the NASA Ares program, were meteorites an interest for you prior to working for NASA or something you got interested in afterwards?
Definitely beforehand. I grew up watching Cosmos with Carl Sagan and have been fascinated by planetary science ever since.
How many successful fall hunts does this make for you now?
As far as finding meteorites goes, this is the second one out of about a dozen where I’ve found a meteorite. I haven’t kept either one, though – the first (Cranfield) was broken up and shipped
to scientists around the world, and the second remains with the landowner (El Sauz). I look at the success criteria a little differently than just finding meteorites, though. For me a successful hunt is one where meteorites are brought in out of the weather because of radar and other data I disseminate. So in those terms, I’ve had a couple of dozen successful meteorite hunts. My favorites are the falls that wouldn’t have been recovered if it weren’t for radar data.
I know you hunted Cranfield MS, successfully, was this the next one you hunted or did you hunt any of the falls in between? What kind of things factor into which events you choose to hunt?
I hunt every one that I can break away from work long enough to work on. They have the obnoxious habit of occurring while I’m on travel somewhere, so I miss more of them than I can visit.
How long were you in the strewn field before you made your find(s)?
I found a meteorite on the third day of searching. It was in a little clearing and I was searching the area in a grid, and it was a case of searching, searching, searching, grass, dirt, dirt, more grass, and then bam – a meteorite, next to the imprint it made in the ground.
How much did you recover?
The meteorite I found was 1.25 kg and fully fusion crusted. It is a beautiful stone! I left it with the landowner because that was the arrangement we had worked out. My wife and I searched with the agreement that we would shepherd a ~20g piece to satisfy the Meteoritical Society classification requirement, which we did. The 1.25 kg stone will join others found on the property in a museum exhibit in San Antonio some time in the near future.
Any run ins with wildlife while you were out there?
I saw the largest rattlesnake I’ve seen in my life. This guy was as big around as my upper arm and was 6-7’ long, without exaggeration. He didn’t even act scared when we flushed him out of the grass, he seemed more annoyed than anything. He coiled up into a defensive stance, which I’m not going to forget anytime soon. Other than that, we saw a lot of deer, turkeys, and the various exotic game the adjoining ranches had been stocked with.
Any hunches on what the classification will be?
L5? I believe I spotted a chondrule or two otherwise I’d say L6.
Any details about this hunt that made it stand out in your mind vs. other hunts you have been on?
This one was entirely on private land. I usually stick to the public land like roads and such and leave transactions with landowners to others. This was the first time I had to find a way to search on private land or have nothing to search at all.
Not related to this fall, but do you have a favorite meteorite and if so what do you find most appealing about it?
I like any of the weirdos. The ungrouped ones are my favorites, just because they all have stories to tell but are holding them tight. The ungrouped ones have more potential in that way than the other meteorites.
Anything else you want to share with the readers?
This one took more patience and luck than others I’ve been on. It was much more difficult that others in the sense that the landowner I worked with required strict anonymity. That restricted how much I could share, which is not something I like to do. The more we share information about finds and find locations, the more meteorites everyone tends to find. So I didn’t enjoy having to stay quiet but didn’t have an option. I’m looking forward to the next fall where I can get back to hunting on roads and sharing news freely.
Q and A with the finders:
Finder: Meredith Howse
So give us a little background; how did you get into meteorites?
I was initially involved on the wholesale side of the fossil industry for about 8 years, and now have had a natural history decor shop for the past 10 years. My favorite part of the business is field work and the hunt. Although I've occasionally sold meteorites as decorative pieces, I was never experienced with classifying or recovering them. My connection to the meteorite community has been on more of a social level than professional level for the past 25 years.
How many successful fall hunts does this make for you now?
This was my first real hunt!
What made you decide that this was the fall to hunt?
I was certainly interested in following the development of this fall more than others because I live in the Houston area, so this was a (relatively) close fall with strong data showing high probability of pieces on the ground. I happen to have a 2 week window where I wasn't traveling for work, so I decided to pack up and go try my luck!
How long were you in the strewn field before you made your find(s)?
I was in the field for 2-3 days with Carl Dietrich, Ashley Humphries, and Mark Lyon. We really needed additional landowner permissions, so we stopped for several days to try and contact other ranch owners. After connecting with a ranch owner and getting permission to hunt their land, Carl and I returned and this piece was recovered on that first morning! So, it was the 4th day of actual field hunting and the 9th day after impact.
How much did you recover?
A single, beautifully intact, full fusion crusted lil 17.27 gm'er with two nice visible metal blebs smiling up at me. As a Native Texan, it made it even better that my first find was here in Texas.
What an exuberant feeling, won't ever forget that!
Any run-ins with wildlife while you were out there?
Do ostriches count?! :) We were warned constantly about rattlesnakes that no longer rattle but we only ever saw one, who luckily had just eaten and was not a threat to us.
Any hunches on what the classification will be?
Not my specialty, but OC, maybe H6 just based on conversations and pictures? Curious to find out.
Not related to this fall, but do you have a favorite meteorite and if so what do you find most appealing about it?
I love Black Beauty and Aguas Zarcas. Both stones hold an enormous amount of scientific value and have high aesthetic value as well.
Anything else you want to share with the readers?
I have to say, I felt a little crazy when first deciding to drive down alone to the Rio Grande Valley and walk around looking for a meteorite, but that hesitation quickly dissipated once I started meeting local landowners and their family members. They were so kind and hospitable and really funny. Everyone we encountered was excited for the fall, eager to help, and super concerned for our safety both from wildlife and any issues stemming from being so close to the Mexican border. I met Carl, Ashley, and Mark out on the side of the road on Day 1 and we ended up having a great time together. I am so glad I went and can't wait for the next hunt. I definitely caught the meteorite fever!
Capture of the Seismic Data Related to this event
Yaozhu Li
Photo by © 2010 James Tobin