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great disappearing meteorite fall acts



Following a little further on the fragmentation discussion suggested by
Lewis' book, he estimates a 0.1 to 10 bar crushing strength for CI
carbonaceous chondrites.  This is one of the reasons we have so few
samples.  The Revelstoke fireball left very little in the way of ground
meteorites and only an amount on the order of a gram was recovered
despite a presumably good size parent.  The largest CI shower collected
is only on the order of 10 kg total mass- a few kg piece is the biggest
ever seen.  It seems unlikely to find really large CI meteorites with
individual fragments massing 100 kg.  Even the CM2s have not been seen
to fall in particularly big fragments.  What's the largest Murchison
individual?  Allende seems much stronger yet and the fall collected
several tons, but none of the individuals even in that case were more
extremely large (what is the biggest known Allende?).

There have been other notable low strength meteorite variations.  The
eucrite Pasamonte left few meteorites, with only 3-4 kg recovered
despite being large.  Its crushing strength is far less than the kbars
indicated for some achondrites in the previous message.

There are some surprises.  Bjurbole seems pretty fragile to me, yet a
big chunk fell (~300 kg; was that intact when it hit the ice?).  I can't
imagine its crushing strength is very high.

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