[meteorite-list] Builders Find Possible Meteorite at Indiana Construction Site

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:17:43 2004
Message-ID: <200312101632.IAA07265_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1558562%20&%20nav=0Ra7Jafg

Builders Find Possible Meteorite at Construction Site
Associated Press
December 10, 2003

Two Shelby county home builders are trying to find out if a rock they
found imbedded in foam insulation at a construction site could be a
meteorite.

Bob Weddle and his son Brian Weddle discovered the rock December first
inside a stack of sheets of foam material left outside at a work site
near Shelbyville. The rock was about four inches around and had a porous
surface. It was about seven inches deep in the insulation.

Bob Weddle says a rock would have bounced off. He believes the object
burned its way into the material.

Indiana University geologist Abhijit Basu says that's possible, if the
rock is a meteorite. Another expert -- Carl Agee, director of the
Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico -- says a
meteorite would be more likely to pierce the foam than melt through it.

The Weddles are trying to find an expert to confirm if what they found
was a meteorite.


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http://www.thelouisvillechannel.com/news/2695269/detail.html

Rock Found In Home May Be Meteorite

Rock Found In Insulation
The Louisville Channel
December 10, 2003

SHELBYVILLE, Ind. -- Two home builders were trying to find out if a rock
they found imbedded in foam insulation at a construction site could be a
meteorite.

Builders Bob Weddle, 51, and his son Brian Weddle, 27, discovered the
rock Dec. 1 inside a stack of sheets of foam material left outside at a
work site near Shelbyville, about 20 miles southeast of Indianapolis.

The rock, which was about 4 inches around and had a porous surface, was
about seven inches deep in the insulation.

"If it fell into a field, I wouldn't have noticed anything about it,
but it went through that foam," Bob Weddle said. "If you threw a rock
at the foam, it'd bounce right off it. This burned its way through it."

That's possible, said Abhijit Basu, a geologist at Indiana University. A
meteor burning through the atmosphere is "more than red-hot; it's
bluish-green hot," he said.

Carl Agee, director of the Institute of Meteoritics at the University of
New Mexico, said a meteorite would be more likely to crash through a
stack of foam than melt through, however.

Most meteor showers do not produce objects large enough to reach the
ground, he said.

The Weddles were trying to find an expert to confirm whether the rock
was a meteorite.
Received on Wed 10 Dec 2003 11:32:36 AM PST