[meteorite-list] Revovered(Recovered) weight of CAMPO

[Gerald Flaherty]

Cool Doug! I need nemonics!! That and ten fingers and ten toes have gotten 
me this far in life!!! Jerry
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <MexicoDoug at aol.com>
To: "David Freeman" <dfreeman at fascination.com>; <meteoriteplaya at comcast.net>
Cc: <bernd.pauli at paulinet.de>; <Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 9:31 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Revovered(Recovered) weight of CAMPO


> Dave, Mike, List,
>
> I like Dave's suggestion to get a handle on the sizes of these monsters. 
> Another demented way if you don't have a local quarry or metal crushing 
> yard nearby, is just to multiply your body weight by 8 for irons, or 3 to 
> 4 for ordinary chondrites.  So a nickel-iron meteorite the size of a 180 
> pound man (82 kilos) would be about 1440 pounds (650 kilos).
>
> This is because iron meteorites are 8 times as dense as water.  People are 
> mostly water (that's why many can float or sink depending on how deep you 
> breathe in.).
>
> People tend to think they are bigger than they reality are (references: Le 
> Petit Prince), so telling a group of kids to assume the fetal (cannon-ball 
> dive) position...a 90 pound kid is the same size as a 325 kilogram iron - 
> a very respectable main mass for many iron meteorites.
>
> For Campo del Cielo, 500-800 kg of apparently new material appears on the 
> market monthly, the size of a 180 pound man give or take 25%. 
> Conservatively, that's 6 metric tons a year increase lately.  So 100 tons 
> total recovered so far is probably a decent practical estimate as you can 
> get.  And clearly has Campo probably as the largest combined weight 
> meteorite recovery known, and a beautiful one at that, although it doesn't 
> hold the record for the size of a single individual.
>
> And when dealing with ordinary chondrites, just halve the iron weights to 
> get in the ballpark of the ordinary chondrites.
>
> If one wanted to involve a classroom in the appreciation of the size and 
> weight of wondrous find like the Campo del Cielo material, a class of 
> thirty kids (fifteen 180 pound adults)packed together like sardines in a 
> can would be the human volume equivalent of a 10 ton iron meteorite.  So 
> there is about as much Campo recovered as 150 people packed together and 
> it increases by one each month.  (For kids, each month it grows two kid's 
> sizes worth.)  And then there is the famous picture of Bob Haag doing an 
> Atlas pose (how I interpret that blissful photo), holding the fifty times 
> larger and 400 times heavier 33,600 (?) kg main mass of Campo del Cielo on 
> his back, which would be a superb addition for scaling in any exhibit.
> Saludos, Doug
>
> Dave Freeman wrote:
>
> Dear Mike, List;
> For a weight vs. mass comparison of piles of meteorites, go to your local 
> rock quarry or aggregate plant and ponder a bit.  Irons would be easier 
> ascertained at a steel or scrap yard but for common (now there's a 
> relative term) chondrites would be approximately equal to a lighter mass 
> rock but for size~mass estimates, try a quarry and see dump trucks and 
> front end loaders and ask about weight of specific rocks.
> Now is a slower season for most crusher operators/quarry operations and 
> may provide a great excuse for a short local field trip.  There are scales 
> in engineering books to convert different materials from limestone 
> (lighter wt.) to quartz (heavier wt.) to iron ores (much heavier wt.) so 
> if you see a pile of a known material, you can use some math to get the 
> tons in a pile.  I can dig up a couple of formulas from
> my  Pocket Ref by Thomas J. Glover (found in Ace Hardware stores nation 
> wide for around $10). Don't leave home with out it.  Best main masses, 
> Dave F.
>
> meteoriteplaya at comcast.net wrote:
>
>>Hi Bernd, Sara & List
>>
>>One point I would like to make is that all anyone can do is estimate a 
>>number as Bernd has done. In writing the main section of "Meteorites from 
>>A to Z" I include TKW. I wanted to try to come up with numbers that were 
>>up to date. For Gibeon I added the TKW (based on adding distributions) of 
>>the Catalogue of 33000 kg and figured at least 17000 kg more had been 
>>recovered and were not reported. So I used the number 50000+ kg.
>>
>>For Campo del Cielo I have 10000+ kg but already had a note to change to 
>>50000+ kg for the next edition. My guess is it is over 60000 kg. If I were 
>>setting up a display I would recommend that one note it is an estimate no 
>>matter what number they use. For example 50 t estimated or ~ 50 t or >50 
>>tonnes.
>>
>>You might also remember the most people me included have no idea of what 
>>10000 kg of a meteorite is in terms of size. So being off by 10000 kg or 
>>more does not mean too much. Probably the only reason to be as accurate as 
>>possible is to create a list of the largest falls by weight.
>>
>>In case anyone is interested I have created a list of the largest 15 
>>individuals by weight for the iron meteorites. It includes lots of 
>>pictures. Here is the URL if you want to check it out;
>>http://jensenmeteorites.com/largestmeteorites.htm
>>
>>Hope that helps.
>>
>>Mike
>>--
>>Mike Jensen IMCA 4264
>>Bill Jensen IMCA 2359
>>Jensen Meteorites
>>16730 E Ada PL
>>Aurora, CO 80017-3137
>>303-337-4361
>>
>>
>>>Dave Freeman wrote:
>>>
>>>>In my catalogue, I see no TKW for my favorite Gibeon iron
>>>>
>>>Hello All,
>>>
>>>There is a table on page 592 of Buchwald's trilogy. Vagn Buchwald
>>>wrote that the total weight of the 77 specimens listed in the table
>>>was 21,000 kg. As many more masses have been found to date, we can
>>>assume a TKW of at least 21 tons!
>>>
>>>Reference:
>>>
>>>BUCHWALD V.F. (1975) Handbook of Iron Meteorites, Vol. 2, pp. 584-593).
>>>
>>>
>>>Best wishes,
>>>
>>>Bernd
>>>
>
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