[meteorite-list] NWA meteorites blessing or omen?

From: Bernd Pauli HD <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:54:04 2004
Message-ID: <3C6A51E8.886D82A5_at_lehrer1.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de>

Graham Christensen wrote:

> I don't think that the information about the strewnfields is all
> that important to science, the physics of meteorite falls and
> the formation of strewnfields is already well known.


Hello Graham and Listees!

Let me first of all admit that, like so many others, I also own several
NWAs (23 + two thin sections to be correct) and some of these are
among the most beautiful meteorites I have ever owned! NWA 904
(the famous "Collection in a Slice") from the Hupés and my very fresh
NWA 788 from Jim Strope or a beautiful 2.16-g CR2 individual from
Dean come to mind ... to name just a few.

Let me also add that I love these meteorites for what they are and for
where they came from - classified or unclassified, with strewn field
information or without!

BUT .... I would now have expected Alex Crutchfield to chime in. Alex
wanted to know my opinion about all those CR2s that have "flooded" the
market and he also asked whether I thought they could or might be paired
with the Acfer CR2s and with El Djouf 001. I wrote back that there is
plenty of information on the Acfers, on El Djouf 001 but practically
n o t h i n g about the NWAs and that we would have to wait until such
meteorites get classified by someone. I was able to send Alex info about
the TKW of all those Acfer CR2, I would have been able to give him find
coordinates and chemical/petrological info on them but ... no chance for
the unclassified or uncatalogued NWAs. If we had strewn field data for
the NWA CR2s and if we could painstakingly compare these to the
pertinent information on the Acfers, then we might perhaps consider
or exclude tentative pairings.

And IF the NWA CR2s should turn out to be paired with the Acfers
or El Djouf, then, again, it would be very important to "reconstruct"
the strewn field parameters to extract scientifically relevant
information like possible CR2 meteorite streams, (comparative)
weathering degrees, shapes and sizes of strewn field ellipses (i.e.
dependancy on meteorite types, total mass, multiple strewn fields
because of late-stage break-up in the atmosphere, separate but
identical, parallel streams, etc.)

Best and ducking before
the flames descend on me :-)

Bernd
Received on Wed 13 Feb 2002 06:45:44 AM PST