[meteorite-list] What are the latest Iron Falls?
Sterling K. Webb
kelly at bhil.com
Fri Mar 11 20:03:22 EST 2005
Hi, All,
Meteoritic irons have been a prized resource for humans for
thousands of years. The Sumerian word for iron is literally "Star
Metal." The Sumerians precede the mining and forging of iron (the
Hittites about 1300 BC) by 3000 years, so the only source they could
have known about is meteorites.
At least one Egyptian pharaoh was buried with a meteoritic iron
knife and it's unlikely he bought on eBay..
Here in Illinois USA, one of the NHM Catalog meteorite finds are
two small beads carefully worked out of meteoritic iron and which were
found in a Mound Builder tomb (Dickinson?).
About four years ago I posted to the List a reference to a paper
by a group of archaeologists at one of Canada's national museums,
documenting the distribution of pre-Columbian iron artifacts all
across the ancient Arctic. Analysis of the material used showed that
all of them came from the great Greenland irons (Cape York). The age
of the sites shows that the Greenland irons were being used for tools
as early as 1000 BC and the tools from it were spread out over 1000
miles away!
There is no doubt that the NWA area was "cleaned out" of all the
iron meteorites that could be found thousands of years ago. Of
course, they missed a few. But if the NWA meteorites reflected the
"normal" distribution of irons and stones, there would be many, many
more irons.
One thing to bear in mind is that the present condition of north
Africa and the Saharan region is a fairly recent development. In
Roman times, these lands were a critical region of the Empire, a
"breadbasket" whose agricultural surplus fed millions all around the
Mediterranean. Roman "plantations" extended a hundred miles or more
into what is now desert where agriculture is vertually impossible in
the present day.
In the first millennium BC, great empires flourished in regions
now completely desert -- Carthage in the west and Cyrene in the east.
The descriptions of the lands they occupied are of temperate and well
watered locales that now do not exist.
The Romans became the great power in the Mediterranean by
conquering Carthage (2nd century BC) and lost that power when north
Africa was seized by the Vandals in the 5th century AD. You know the
Vandals didn't bother to conquer north Africa because it was a land of
sand! Practical, those Vandals.
In still earlier times (3 to 8 thousand years ago), north Africa
was a well watered grassland that was slowly drying out. French
geologists (in the 1920's and 30's) have spent a great deal of effort
tracing the old river courses in the Sahara back into the last
glaciation. There's a huge amount of documentation on these.
Obviously, these rivers didn't run through a sand desert.
That's because the sand wasn't there until geologically recent
times. The sand is produced by wind erosion in the upland region in
the heart of the Sahara. Sand production is a feedback accelerated
process in which sand erosion produces vastly more sand which produces
vastly more erosion... You get the picture. The process is still going
on. Sub-Saharan southern lands lose a few miles a year of their own
productive land to the outflow of Saharan sand.
The former rivers have retreated into sub-surface aquifers, but
their connectivity and continuity is demonstrated by tracing the
distribution of unique species of underground fish recovered from
ancient very deep wells. Interestingly enough, the buried rivers of
the eastern Sahara appear to be connected (or have been connected) to
a similar network of buried rivers in the Middle East! They share the
same unique species.
There is plentiful evidence that the present north African deserts
had a substantial population in ancient times. There are rock
carvings galore, showing scenes of big game hunting and tribal life in
places hundreds of miles from any settled human habitation today.
After millennia of collecting, there are still plentiful human
stone artifacts to be found everywhere in the "desert," in far greater
amounts than meteorites! And Dean Bessey sells them, too! I'm
certain irons were continuously collected and shipped off into Roman
times and beyond, just as meteorites are today.
We need to bear in mind these short term geological changes when
trying to establish weathering ages for "desert" meteorites. For
example, many of the "dry lakes" in the western US were wet lakes
10,000 years ago. In fact, there was a great lake, Lake Lahontan, in
the inter-mountain basin back then, which was really a great lake,
covering 8,000 square miles and up to 800 feet deep.
<http://www.answers.com/topic/lake-lahontan>
So, an NWA iron is a lucky find.
Sterling Webb
------------------------------------------
Meteoriteshow wrote:
> I don't know... I don't think so because it would be something linked to
> differenciation, which occured at the very beggining of the Earth's life. As
> Garren mentioned, I would rather go for the use of iron meteorites to
> manufacture tools at the beggining of the 'age of iron'.
> Anyway, I have no proof of that, and just mention suggestions.
> I have heard also about an huge iron meteorite somewhere near then northern
> pole, that had been used by men to make tools in the past, and was supposed
> to be a holy stone. I do not remember exactly where it was, but I think
> someone wrote something about it sometime ago on the list...
>
> Cheers
>
> Frederic
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tom Knudson" <peregrineflier at npgcable.com>
> To: "Meteoriteshow" <meteoriteshow at free.fr>; "Arizona Skies Meteorites"
> <johnbirdsell at yahoo.com>; <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 8:51 PM
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] What are the latest Iron Falls?
>
> > Frédéric Beroud wrote'
> >
> > "I always wondered why so few irons have been found so far in the Sahara
> > Desert... I think that as most of the time they are heavier than OCs, the
> > ones that landed over there are still under the surface, waiting fo
> erosion
> > to make them appearing... "
> >
> > Along those same lines, I wonder if Irons work their way down, not unlike
> > gold in a gold pan, while the lighter material works it's was to the
> > surface?
> >
> >
> > Thanks, Tom
> > peregrineflier <><
> > IMCA 6168
> > http://www.frontiernet.net/~peregrineflier/Peregrineflier.htm
> > http://fstop.proboards24.com/
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Meteoriteshow" <meteoriteshow at free.fr>
> > To: "Arizona Skies Meteorites" <johnbirdsell at yahoo.com>;
> > <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> > Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 12:00 PM
> > Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] What are the latest Iron Falls?
> >
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I always wondered why so few irons have been found so far in the Sahara
> > > Desert... I think that as most of the time they are heavier than OCs,
> the
> > > ones that landed over there are still under the surface, waiting fo
> > erosion
> > > to make them appearing... Another solution I thought of is that most of
> > them
> > > have been used in the prehistoric time for making tools, as the first
> iron
> > > tools to be made after the neolithic period were most probably made of
> > > meteoritic material...
> > > Does anybody have any other suggestion?
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > Frédéric Beroud
> > > www.meteoriteshow.com
> > > IMCA # 2491 (http://www.meteoritecollectors.org/)
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "Arizona Skies Meteorites" <johnbirdsell at yahoo.com>
> > > To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> > > Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 6:56 PM
> > > Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] What are the latest Iron Falls?
> > >
> > >
> > > > Yes Martin, that is a gorgous piece with a beautiful
> > > > rolled back lip. It is striking just how few iron
> > > > falls there actually are. There must be thousands of
> > > > chondritic falls over the same time span. It just goes
> > > > to show that the rare desert irons that are coming out
> > > > now reflect hundreds of thousands of years of
> > > > accumulation. Once these have been picked clean we'll
> > > > have a long time to wait for an equally rich hunting
> > > > environment ;-)
> > > >
> > > > Cheers
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > -John
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --- Martin Altmann <Altmann at Meteorite-Martin.de>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > Not to forget the killer iron Ali Hmani had in
> > > > > Munich,
> > > > > must be a recent fall with that blueish fresh crust.
> > > > > You can see him, holding that iron in the latest
> > > > > Meteorite Magazine issue,
> > > > > in Pilski's show report.
> > > > >
> > > > > Meow!
> > > > > Martin
> > > > >
> > > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > > From: <bernd.pauli at paulinet.de>
> > > > > To: <Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> > > > > Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 6:11 PM
> > > > > Subject: [meteorite-list] What are the latest Iron
> > > > > Falls?
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > > 1. What were the last 3 to 5 recorded iron
> > > > > > falls around the world? Does it include SA?
> > > > >
> > > > > Kaposfüred - IVA - Hungary - 1995
> > > > > Ban Rong Du - Thailand - 1993
> > > > > Sterlitamak - IIIAB - former USSR - 1990
> > > > > Chisenga - Malawi - 1988
> > > > > Raghunathpura - IIAB - India - 1986
> > > > > Akyumak - IVA - Turkey - 1981
> > > > > Ningbo - IVA - China - 1975
> > > > > Juromenha - IIIAB - Portugal - 1968
> > > > > Muzaffarpur - IRANOM - India - 1964
> > > > > Bogou - IAB - Upper Volta - 1962
> > > > > Kayakent - IIIAB - Turkey - 1961
> > > > > Yardymly - IIICD - former USSR - 1959
> > > > > Sikhote-Alin - IIAB - former USSR - 1947
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Best wishes,
> > > > >
> > > > > Bernd
> > > > >
> > > > > ______________________________________________
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