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Re: Mars again





>
>STEVEN R. SCHONER schrieb:
>
>> You forgot Lafayette -- 1931 or thereabouts.
>
>No, Steve, I didn't. Lafayette was a find and known before 1931:
>
>A mass of about 800g was noticed by O.C. Farrington in 1931 in the
>geological collections in Purdue Univ., Lafayette. Description,
>H.H.Nininger, Pop. Astron., Northfield, Minnesota, 1935, 43, p.404 (M.A.
>6-207), B. Mason, Meteorites, Wiley, 1962, p.232. The stone is very
>fresh and similar to Nakhla; it may be part of that fall. K-Ar age, 1600
>my., F.A. Podosek and J.C. Huneke, GCA, 1973, 37, p.667. Distinct from
>Nakhla and Governador Valadares, J.L. Berkley et al., GCA, 1980, (Suppl.
>14), p.1089.
>
>

I have somewhere seen a anectodal story about Lafayette where the 
stone was supposedly picked up by a black man fishing near a stream.

I remember, many years ago, I asked Harvey Nininger about this, and 
he had heard it, too.  I also remember him telling me that the black
man had said that he had seen it fall, and that it was shaped like a 
"cornpone"-- a certain kind of corn cake.  The year of its fall was
not certain in this story, but thought to be several years prior to
1931.


Unfortunately, the origin of this story is not known.  But I
distinctly remember reading it somewhere, and later talking to
Nininger about it shortly after I acquired my .86 gram fusion crusted
fragment of this very interesting meteorite.

BTW-- Lafayette has distinct brown spots (hydrated clays) that in my
opinion make it visually different from Nakhla, a point that is 
supported in the above mentioned research.

I will see if I can find this story again, and if so I will make it
a point to present it in its entirety here.


Steve Schoner
AMS
  

>Best regards,
>
>Bernd
>
>
>
>

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