[meteorite-list] another new argentina fall??

[MeteorHntr at aol.com]

Let's hope they have the funds to both pay the people to 
do the proper field work and the funds to pay the lucky 
finders a fair reward in recovering specimens.

It is easy for a  government to say "We get to keep 
everything" but it is another for them to follow through 
and spend the hundreds of man hours to do an adequate 
field recovery operation.  

Of course the government of  Argentina has done little to 
recover and preserve the Campos that are still in the 
ground.  Here is their chance to do a "witnessed fall" 
correctly.  Apparently this is what they wished for last 
fall when they passed the new law, and now their wish 
has come true.

Steve Arnold
 


In a message dated 4/18/2008 2:54:33 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
mexicodoug at aim.com writes:
Hi Sonny, Not that much more news other than I  already posted unless 
this is of help.  It is a very large fall though  only small fragments 
are being reported:

* These are the approximate  coordinates of the 700 gram piece reported 
by the Agricultural Engineer  Gabriela from the Nursury.  Sorry if they 
are off by a couple of  meters:

31 Degrees 54'38.68" South
58 Degrees 19'50.76" West

*  It is clear that hundreds (more like many thousands) of pieces fell 
in the  surrounding population of Berduc in the Entre Rios municipality. 
Several in Berduc (hundreds of meters from the Nursury where the 
"largest"  piece was found) complained of their roofs being pelted with 
a hail of tiny  black rocks.

* One residence in Berduc spoke about their experience (her  name was 
withheld by the report), I'll paraphrase the woman who had about 25  
grams of fragments with fusion crust, for you:

"We felt an  illumination and it surprised us, but, we didn't pay that 
much attention, it  might have been a car to it and kept watching 
television.

But the  thing is, a little while later, we felt the piece [hit].  I 
would say  um, one... right away...I'd say about five minutes just after 
the  illumination; we looked out the windows and we didn't see any 
clouds, no  lights, no vehicles, nothing.

Like who would throw rocks?  We went  outside and turned on the outside 
light.   Well, we didn't want to  go outside, we stayed inside, one 
always avoids doing that at night.   We thought was was that? but we 
stayed inside well, kept watching television  and we were there along 
while. Then we left it like that, we didn't hear  anything else, we did 
nothing but we were left with that thought- what could  that have been?

Well today in the morning right when we got up, the first  thing we did 
was go see was that was that rock, the dog was on his leash,  and we 
said, what?, the dog we took to look, then I told my grandson, so go  up 
on the roof, something happened on the roof last night, maybe a rock,  
and thats how it went, he climbed up on the roof, and he found these,  
little pieces of this.  Later, he began to look like he's looking now  
to see if there were more pieces that were bigger, since for us it was 
a  larger piece that (shook?) the window.  This [rock with the burnt 
rind]  is something new for us.  We're going to keep looking.  It was  
about 10:00PM, I don't know the exact time, maybe five minutes to ten  
[at night 6 April 2008].

* The Astronomical Association of Entre Rios  started the search within 
two hours after the fall led by 29-year old Mario  Peter Coordinato of 
the Astronomical Association who did an first rate and  outstanding job 
with three co-members, without sleeping or even eating,  interviewing, 
etc., tracking down the fall in the first hours through the  night 
aftwer the bolide report at 10:03PM.  He did such a good job at  
documentation!!!!!!!!!!

* The Astronomical Association led by  president Luis Trumper in an 
excellent documentary gave a long, interesting  and entertaining 
presentation on the importance of meteorites in the study  of the Solar 
System.  The documentary was of equal or better (!)  quality than any I 
have seen anywhere in the world.  He should be  heartily congratulated.  
He said says after the initial two day search,  that they don't have 
resources to spearhead the search for more, but of  course they'll be 
back to look for more.  He affirmed that the job is  now in the hands of 
the National Guard/Border Poilce force and other  official government 
police organizations.

* The fall is very close to  the border [12 kilometers from the above 
coordinates, to be exact] and was  observed in Uruguay, also. Gonzalo 
Tancredi, the IAU member from the  University of the Republic of Uruguay 
who led the dumping of Pluto's  Planetary by arguing it had been wrongly 
classified for the past 75 years,  intends to go on a expedition to look 
for some pieces, too.

* The  event created quite a spectacle in the media including a news 
helicopter,  but strangely not many more pieces than the original 5 are 
being reported  (though it is obvious many are in the hands of the 
locals).  It has  been a great event orchestrated by the Astronomical 
Association in  coordination with locals, local government officials, 
the National/Border  Guard and federal police forces and media throught 
the region and  capital.

* No photos of the 4-5 second 10:03PM bolide creating the  meteorites 
have been confirmed in the first week or so, so far.

* It  is a stony meteorite, somewhat fragile, fragmenting easily, 
possibly with  shock veins, that moderately attracts a regular magnet.

So far there are  two institutions who want to analyze the meteorite.  I 
think they  are:
* Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas, CONICET, Argentina
*  Another University group in Spain

oes this help ;)
Best wishes and  Great Health,
Doug
 



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