[meteorite-list] Happy Birthday Ninginger

[al mitterling]

Greetings List,

In honor of Dr. Nininger's Birthday.

--AL

Dr. Nininger was good at both presenting information on his numerous talks 
throughout central and western United States and also at hunting them. He 
would sometimes stop in at a local restaurant for a bite to eat and would 
lay meteorite specimens on the counter so as to generate interest that would 
sometimes uncover new finds. He would go back to areas he had asked about 
specimens before and ask again, always offering a reward for a new find. His 
program was initiated in 1923 and by 1950 in the state of Kansas alone where 
only 15 new meteorites had been located in seventy five years prior, he had 
located an additional 40 new falls! Perhaps more important was information 
he was collecting with each new field investigation. He was trying to 
unravel some of the assumptions of that time into more factual information 
produced by the types and amount of new falls and finds he or those working 
with him had found. Some of these were the ratios of the different types of 
various falls, such as irons and stony type. Nininger showed that showers of 
stony meteorites were the rule rather than the exception.

Nininger brought to light over 222 previously unknown falls, that added up 
to over 2,000 individual meteorites during this time frame of hunting. No 
doubt that many other new falls were found as an indirect result of his 
program to other institutions, collectors and scientists. A Dr. Flecter 
Watson of Harvard once wrote in his book " Between The Planets" Published in 
1941 that Nininger was accounting for half of all the discoveries in the 
world at that time. In 1937 thirty one new discoveries were tabulated to 
have been found due to Nininger's efforts. More than three times the amount 
found in any three years previous for the entire world. For all of the finds 
there were also the pseudo-meteorite finds that totaled some 35,000 
specimens that yielded nothing. Nininger figured he had published over 150 
different papers, four books and two booklets and passed out over 200,000 
free leaflets in his effort to bring about new meteorite finds and 
information.

Nininger also stated that mankind is not ready to write a chemical formula 
for meteorites as some new varieties have only been encounter only once and 
perhaps some will only fall to our planet once in a 10,000 year span of 
time. Of the 1,800 varieties that had been found and cataloged at that time, 
some were only represented by one, two, or three falls. He also reasoned 
there are some that have never reached our planet at all and that we don't 
have an adequate sample of the over-all increment of the meteoritcal matter 
and I think that is even ringing as true today as back then. Often Nininger 
was told that a fall was all hunted out and that no more remained. In his 
program of finding more specimens he would often hunt an area again and find 
many more new specimens. Such was the case of the Plainview where 68.2 
pounds had been found at the time and it was suggested that all of that fall 
had been found and no more remained. However, an additional 1430 lbs were 
later recovered due to the efforts of Nininger and some others. Showing a 
lack of understanding of how to hunt a strewnfield.

Source: Find A Falling Star By H.H. Nininger

The Nininger Moments are articles or books written originally by Harvey 
Nininger and put into a consolidated form by Al Mitterling. Some of the 
items written in the moments might be old out dated material and the reader 
is advised to keep this in mind.

--AL Mitterling

For more Nininger Moments: http://www.meteorite.com/nininger/