[meteorite-list] When is a fall...?

[MeteorHntr at aol.com]

Of course: all Finds did fall at one time.  As all Falls were found at  one 
time.  
 
I would think being able to assign a specific date and even a time of day  
with some certainty to a meteorite landing is what anchors it into the Fall  
category.  All others recoveries that are found without the known  fall 
time end up in the Find category.

I know, some older Falls have  vague dates, sometimes only given the month 
they fell, but nonetheless an event  (seen, heard, felt recorded with 
instruments) historically establishes a  specific time which the specimen(s) added 
to the mass of our planet.  

There is some science that would be tied to how long a specimen has been  
on Earth, but for the most part, the collecting community is interested in 
the  falling date for the historic aspect rather than for the possible  
scientific aspects.

On such-a-such a date, this happened and a  result this certain meteorite 
landed on Earth; a Meteorite Fall.
 
Some meteorites are on the edge, such as Cat Mountain. No reports of a  
fireball were seen, nor sonic booms heard, but a very fresh meteorite ended up  
on a walking path, supposedly that wasn't there the day before.  A  fall?  
Definitely not a Witness Fall.  It ends up in the Find  category. 
 
Waconda, Kansas is so fresh, and probably was a witness fall immediately  
recovered. But without any documented witnesses, it too ends up as a  "Find." 
  Lafayette, is another one on the fence.  Found on the  shelf at Purdue 
University, no date of the fall, where it was found, or who  recovered it 
exists.  But there was a story that a man saw it land while  fishing (as I 
recall.)  It is killer fresh, and few doubt that someone  saw in land on a 
certain day, but not being able to document more details,  it is forever assigned 
as a Find.

Steve Arnold
Arkansas



In a message dated 4/27/2009  5:24:00 P.M. Central Daylight Time, 
rob_mccafferty at yahoo.com  writes:

Falls are surely when recoverable material makes it to the  surface.

It would be classified as a "find" if material is recovered but  the 
fireball was not witnessed. This suggests serendipitous discovery but is  
obviously not always the case (Antarctica and hot desert "finds" are the result  of 
deliverate search efforts but in most cases, the fall obviously occured many 
 years ago. The geology of these areas makes sucess more likely, perhaps, 
vastly  so but it is still a lucky dip).
For normal parts of the world, a search for  new finds is one of hope.

It is an "observed fall" if it is eyeballed on  the way down.
Following this, searchers KNOW there are samples in a specific  area rather 
than hope. This improves the chance of recovering a sample  tremendously.
I know freshness is important but if it were as easy to  discover a new 
"find" as it was an "observed fall", the hunters wouldn't feel  the need to 
descend on each new "observed fall" like a pack of wolves on a  wounded caribou 
(OK, I know it's still not easy to discover an observed fall but  I meant 
by comparison, like electromagnetism is easier than quantum electro  
dynamics...oh and sorry about the pack of wolves analogy, that makes hunters  sound 
vicious and bloodlust driven)

I think "fall" has become synonymous  with "observed fall" but nobody can 
really be bothered to say "observed fall"  all the time.


When it's witnessed by photograph or radar but not  actually seen, a search 
would still be targetted to a specific  area  determined from the 
observation. I'd still be classifying this as an "observed  fall".

Some purists may balk at classifying a radar image as "observed"  but there 
is a precedent (kinda)
Many of Saturn's and Uranus' moons have  "Voyager 2" given as their 
discoverer. Some, were spotted on images only many  weeks after the image was taken 
and credit goes to the automated robot rather  than the image analyst. I 
think this is very much the same thing. If a machine  can discover a moon, it 
can observe a fall.

Rob Mc
 
**************Access 350+ FREE radio stations anytime from anywhere on the 
web. Get the Radio Toolbar! 
(http://toolbar.aol.com/aolradio/download.html?ncid=emlcntusdown00000003)