[meteorite-list] Carancas Weight Info - Help Needed

[Sterling K. Webb]

Hi, Jason,

    I have a mountain of everything I could find
published in Spanish and English on Carancas,
and I can not find any scientific description that
mentions the largest mass recovered or any specific
mass. The Met Bul. DB
http://tin.er.usgs.gov/meteor/metbull.php?code=45817
uses the mass of the largest stone Mike Farmer
brought back, 342 gm of which he retains, it says,
320 gm.

    However there were multi-kilo stones mentioned
early on; it's just that they aren't documented. The
Bolivians scurried over the border very quickly,
even before the Peruvian INGEMMET team got
there, it seems. I did hear a mention of a 5.7 kg
stone. That would be a monster for a Carancas
stone.

    Carancas is very fragile. A fair amount of it (many,
many kilos) was distributed as a fine fluffy blue-gray
dust around the crater. Hence, as for the size
distribution, it's likely biased toward a large number
of smallish fragments (based on the ease with which
it disintegrates). If that is the case, it would be very
difficult to reliably estimate a total weight. Do you
count DUST as part of that? Particles under 100 mg?

    The total weight could easily be 100 kilos or more,
maybe a lot more. It's a very strange physical specimen.


Sterling K. Webb
-------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jason Utas" <meteoritekid at gmail.com>
To: "Meteorite-list" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2009 12:44 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Carancas Weight Info - Help Needed


> Hello All,
> I'm looking for information about Carancas - does anyone have any
> remotely detailed information about the size distribution of fragments
> found - or the weight of the largest specimen(s) recovered?
> Thanks,
> Jason
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