[meteorite-list] McCartney's News from the Canadian Fall

[Michael Farmer]

Man, I wish I was there, but with just returning from a 23 day expedition to the other side of the planet and going to Japan Monday, I had no chance to make it. 
You say pieces are claimed 10 km away, that should be no problem, that is 6 miles, a normal strewnfield is that large, and of course, could be triple that for a truly huge fall, which this has the earmarks of. I envy you guys today though, not the cold part, but the finding of new fall stones, that gets my heart racing!
Mike




--- On Fri, 12/5/08, McCartney Taylor <mccartney at blackbearddata.com> wrote:

> From: McCartney Taylor <mccartney at blackbearddata.com>
> Subject: [meteorite-list] McCartney's News from the Canadian Fall
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Friday, December 5, 2008, 10:02 PM
> The hunting is over, 5-10 cm of snow is predicted tonight. 
> More fell last night.  Searching is all but impossible at
> this point.  The weather has been abnormally snow free up
> till this week.
> 
> We have had the luck of securing 5% of the strewnfield. We
> also had the luck of a really great landowner at that. 
> We've had to forfeit a sizable portion of our finds to
> this land owner, who fully deserves it for his co-operation
> with us.  In fact, he deputized us to police his property
> and kick off the plethora of trespassers that was rampant
> after the news aired locally.
> 
> The stone looks like an H6, but I'm not qualified to
> make a call on that.  I do know that we're seeing alot
> of secondary crust, so perhaps this thing blew high?  Sonny
> spotted some veining in some of his stones.  I've
> managed to mainly find fully crusted individuals.
> 
> I want everyone to know, my luggage was lost coming into
> Canada. So I searched in -22 Celsius with the clothes on my
> back that I wore on the plane. If you think you are a
> meteorite hunter, you will know when you crawl on your hands
> and knees looking for pee sized meteorites in -22C.
> You'll either cut it, or go home. Me...I'm still
> here.
> 
> The fall looks big.  But after today, the material coming
> out is going to stop.  Most of the material we saw recovered
> was stolen. It will be claimed 'roadway'.  I even
> heard of some falling on crown lands 10 km away! 
> 
> Interviews done indicate 15 'pops' when the
> fireball blew.  It was a hell of a show, I hear. One person
> recalled his tin roof sounding like it was hit by hail
> stones.
> 
> My best guess on TKW is about 35kg of which 30kg is in the
> hands of the Mitchell family/Dr Hildebrand.  The Mitchell
> have expressed no interest in selling.  The few locals who
> have offered material for sell are asking so much I
> can't touch it. Its that bad.
> 
> Today we were interviewed by Canadian Broadcasting. Sonny
> did well in expressing space enthusiasm, while I did a short
> stint on the science and ballistics of the fall.  Then we
> took the camera guy hunting.  To my stunned eyes, we
> stumbled on a meteorite while walking 20m forward to find a
> shoot spot. That was caught on film.  (68grams)  Then within
> 20m we found a tiny 2nd one.  Frilling amazing.  They made a
> wrap because they were freezing and left.  What totally
> killed me, was when I went back to hunting, I noticed the
> camera guy had STEPPED on another meteorite, about 25g. 
> LOL! Funny funny.
> 
> best
> -mt
> 
> 
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