[meteorite-list] Carancas crater - 8 months later

[Jan Hattenbach]

Hello list,

last week I visited the impact site in Carancas, Peru for my very last time. I´m heading back to Germany soon...

I found the crater covered with a tarpaulin. After more than eight months since the impact it is pretty much eroded, the rims are much shallower than at my last visit on september 26, 2007. The water inside the crater ist approx. 30 cm deep, the crater bottom is completely shoaled. Although local authorities had claimed to preserve the crater in novermber 2007, obviously not very much has happend since then. There are 4 concrete pillars surrounding the crater, approx. 1,5 meters high, that ought to be the basis for a roof that was supposed to protect the crater from the heavy rainfall in the rainseason. However, it looks very much as if these construction works hav been stopped some time ago. As I write in my report, the structure of these pillows looks very similar to to the fragile character of the Carancas meteorites...

There have been some diggings in the vicinity of the crater, it was explained to me that they are to redirect the flow of surface water. 

My guide (who was the same guy that brought me there on my first visit on september 22) told me that sometimes tourists came to Desaguadero to visit the crater. On the way there I was offered some "meteorites". I found that most of them were just dust from mother earth, but among the dust were indeed some tiny meteorite fragments! I took the fragments and left the dust for the other tourists :-)

You can find some fotos and my report (in german, but I mentioned the interesting part in this email) on my webblog:

http://www.kosmologs.de/kosmo/blog/himmelslichter/chile-2008/2008-06-05/8-monate-danach-besuch-am-meteoritenkrater-von-carancas

Best regards fom Peru:

Jan

 
-- 
Das Universum expandiert? Komisch, ich finde immer seltener einem Parkplatz! (Harald Lesch)

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