[meteorite-list] Kenya Fall & Hammers

[Jim Wooddell]

This is from Mike...

Trying to get this to the meteorite list but tried more than 30 hours ago 
with no response from Art.

This email is premature due to circumstances out of my control sadly.

I am announcing the recovery of over 11.7 kilograms of the new Kenya 
meteorite fall from 16 July, 2011.

I saw the news of the fall on 17 July, and purchased a ticket to Kenya about 
4 hours later.  I arrived in Kenya on 20 July, and on the morning of 21 
July, less than 125 hours after the fall, I had more than a kilo in hand. 
Upon arriving at the fall location, I met a guy who knew a girl who saw a 
stone land only 5 feet from her in a coffee field while working at ~10:30 am 
when the explosions rocked the sky. It was cloudy at the fall site so no one 
saw anything, just heard massive explosions and then loud whistling and 
sounds that most described as gunfire.

Moments after buying that stone, I went to another house of a boy who found 
a 777 gram stone in a coffee field about 30 minutes after the fall.

I stayed 9 days in Kenya, purchasing 10.5 kilos of stones, including the as 
of now main mass of 3.5 kg. The first stone that was reported on the news 
weighs less than 2.5 kg, not 5 kg reported.

Most interesting about this fall is that it also has 3 seperate 
hammerstones!

First is a househitter that smashed through a metal house roof. I paid to 
have the rooftop cut out and purchased several fragments of the meteorite, 
including more on this trip.

Second was a stone that weighed more than 350 grams which went through the 
roof of a greenhouse, and was witnessed by a man working there, it smashed 
into a metal growing table and exploded into hundreds of pieces. I have all 
of that one and the plastic hole where it was cut out to be patched.

 Third is another greenhouse smasher from the same complex, found only 3 
days ago by workers moving plants out. It broke into several pieces 
virtually all of which Greg Hupe and I recovered. It has been subjected to 
high humidity for a month.


I have built a strewnfield map of all but 3 pieces, with exact locations.

I returned almost two weeks ago for round two with Greg Hupe. We were able 
to purchase only an additional 6 stones totalling 1150 grams.

This fall is not thick, despite intense searching by hundreds of people who 
need the money very badly, they have found little.

We hired 25 workers for the last two weeks, working from 8 am to 6 pm 
scouring the bushland, cornfields, banana plantations, and coffee fields, 
without a single recovery from them.  I hunted and walked a great many miles 
myself with no finds. This was a large fall but seems to be very spread out 
and large areas are either not huntable or are under heavy cultivation as 
harvest and tilling is going on now.

I have already sold several large pieces of this meteorite, I will have some 
for sale, but less than 1 kg.

I will be building a page about it in the next 48 hours as I am in London 
now, on my way home. It is already in the lab under study, thin sections on 
the way and from my own observations I think this meteorite will likely be 
an L4 or 5.

It has no brecciation or veining other than what I suspect are some metal 
veins seen from the outside, have cut nothing.

Expect to hear more from me as soon as I get rested up and get my site 
ready.

There will be little of this available, mostly small fragments, I may have 
one or two larger stones available, 279~  g and 313~ gram 100% complete, but 
not cheap!

Expenses were more than $1000 per day not including airfare. Nobody works 
for free in Kenya, to get them to move, money had to come out.

In their own words " I need to be properly motivated". Heard that exact 
phrase more than once.

Michael Farmer










----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Meteorite Mania!" <meteoritemania at gmail.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 2:04 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Kenya Fall & Hammers


> Where is all the talk about the newly recovered Kenya fall with
> multiple hammers?
>
> The list should be on fire right now...and where are the pictures?
> We're itching to see fresh crust.
>
> Well done Michael, keep up the good work.
>
> Ty
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