[meteorite-list] Magnetite/Glass Meteorite Balls

[Chris Peterson]

> Meteoritic dust or cosmic dust: put a flat white
> plastic pan or small "splash pool" of water out away
> from the trees on the peak night of a meteor shower,
> and in the morning you will be rewarded with a black
> dust on the bottom of the pool...

Have you actually done this? Because the sort of micron-scale dust 
produced by meteors has an atmospheric lifetime measured in months. 
While there's certainly meteor dust falling all the time, you won't find 
any in the morning from the previous night's shower.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
To: "Mike Groetz" <mpg444 at yahoo.com>; "Meteorite List" 
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 8:23 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Magnetite/Glass Meteorite Balls


> Hi, Mike, List,
>
>    The Seller believes this material to be "Jurassic"
> in origin because he finds it in sand produced from
> Jurassic strata, but while he's wrong about that, he
> may be right about it being meteoritic!
>
>    When a meteorite ablates in the atmosphere, the
> majority of its mass is turned into a dust of tiny fused
> droplets. Eventually, that meteoritic dust will fall to
> earth; some will land on water, sink to the stream and
> lake bottoms and become incorporated in the sand
> (or mud).
>
>    Meteoritic dust or cosmic dust: put a flat white
> plastic pan or small "splash pool" of water out away
> from the trees on the peak night of a meteor shower,
> and in the morning you will be rewarded with a black
> dust on the bottom of the pool, that could well be
> interpreted as:
>    "Meteorite balls, glass balls, zircons, garnet, magnetite
> and some other minerals... The balls are magnetite balls.
> Somethimes with the white transparents glass balls you
> can find some green balls that look like moldavite or
> olivina fused samples..."
>
>    Much more fun to collect your own than to
> buy it on eBay, though.
>
>
> Sterling K. Webb