[meteorite-list] Some thoughts on Larry Atkin's Recent Holbrook Find

[DNAndrews]

Hola Johnny Q,
You may be right, but as large as that piece was, it might have taken a 
couple of years or so for it to be washed or eroded out. But you are 
right, it was found near the top of a mound....just slightly down from 
the top. Even one fragment was found under a cow pie. ;-)

The miniscule 69 gms. I found that day (largest fragment 43 gms...one of 
my better days), just didn't seem worth fussing over after Larry's 
whopper "Holy Grail" find. ;-)

Congrats to Larry....don't know how you did it, but you did it.

Dave


JKGwilliam wrote:

>Bernd, Larry, Maria and List,
>Here's some more "food for thought" concerning the Holbrook strewnfield.
>
>One of my best friends, Dave Andrews, lives in Holbrook and has hunted the 
>strewnfield hundreds of times.  He was Larry and Maria when Larry made his 
>find of a lifetime.  Dave and I talked on the phone while the three of them 
>were still out in the field, and Dave told me it was found in an area that 
>many of us had been over dozens of times.
>
>How could that be?
>
>Over the years, Dave has noted that wind and water erosion probably come 
>into play.  After a good wind or rain storm, artifacts ( indian pottery 
>shards) and meteorites become exposed. They seem to "appear" in places 
>where they weren't just days before.  In actuality, they were there all 
>along but were hidden below a thin layer of sand.  Anyone who has ever 
>hunter there has noticed that there are small "hillocks" of sand mounded up 
>around the bases of some of the indigenous shrubs.  My guess is that once 
>these shrubs die and are blown away by the winds (which can last for days 
>and reach speeds of  50 MPH and more)  the sand moves on without the shrubs 
>there to hold it in place.
>
>Several years ago, Dave, John Blennert and I were hunting in 
>Holbrook.  While walking along with Dave, he bent over and picked up a 
>small complete stone of about 2 grams.  It was perched atop a small column 
>of soil very much like a golf ball sitting on a tee.  The soil (mostly 
>sand) around it had blown away leaving the small stone nearly half an inch 
>above the surrounding soil.
>
>Best,
>
>John Gwilliam
>At 01:09 PM 2/12/2007, bernd.pauli at paulinet.de wrote:
>  
>
>>Hello Larry, Maria, and List,
>>
>>First of all, of course, sincere congratulations!
>>
>>"They came to the Southwest and did an amazing job, finding
>> meteorites at Holbrook, Franconia and Gold Basin."
>>
>>.. which should remind us all of Bob Haag's famous words:
>>
>>"The key is to get out there and look for them."
>>"Usually some pieces were missed in the initial search."
>>
>>But: "I had been within 50 feet of Larry's find many, many
>>      times and driven by it many more."
>>
>>.. which shows how difficult it can be, even for experienced
>>meteorite hunters like Ruben Garcia.
>>
>>.. which should not discourage anyone willing to search the "strewnfield"
>>again and again, even though Foote (no, not Gary ;-) remarked in his pre-
>>liminary note on the Holbrook shower in 1912:
>>
>>"the field is now pretty well cleaned up."
>>
>>Hmm! If he had known what he didn't know then, ... he was wrong!
>>
>>Here is one of the "die-hard" observations from Foote's notes:
>>
>>"One piece larger than an orange fell into a tree in a yard at Aztec 
>>cutting the limb
>> off slick and clean and falling to the ground, and when picked up was 
>>almost red-hot."
>>
>>"Von Achen, who saw them fall, reported that they were too hot to pick
>> up. Two accounts state that they became lighter in color after cooling."
>>
>>According to Foote's notes, the ellipsoidal strewnfield extended 
>>west->east but one question
>>has not yet been answered satisfactorily: Were the stones 
>>"indiscriminately spread over the
>>ground", or were they found sorted according to size (and weight)? How do 
>>Larry's "find of
>>a lifetime" and Maria's finds fit into this puzzle?
>>
>>Happy to own an 8.3-gram individual (label no. 331) purchased
>>    
>>
>>from the Zeitschels in 1987 and a 0.45-gram thin platelet,
>  
>
>>Bernd
>>
>>P.S.: Please, don't forget to include the Branch
>>      family in your thoughts and your prayers !
>>
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>>    
>>
>
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>  
>
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