[meteorite-list] What are the latest Iron Falls?
From: Sterling K. Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Mar 21 13:24:56 2005 Message-ID: <42323FDA.4D282A6B_at_bhil.com> Hi, All, Meteoritic irons have been a prized resource for humans for thousands of years. The Sumerian word for iron is literally "Star Metal." The Sumerians precede the mining and forging of iron (the Hittites about 1300 BC) by 3000 years, so the only source they could have known about is meteorites. At least one Egyptian pharaoh was buried with a meteoritic iron knife and it's unlikely he bought on eBay.. Here in Illinois USA, one of the NHM Catalog meteorite finds are two small beads carefully worked out of meteoritic iron and which were found in a Mound Builder tomb (Dickinson?). About four years ago I posted to the List a reference to a paper by a group of archaeologists at one of Canada's national museums, documenting the distribution of pre-Columbian iron artifacts all across the ancient Arctic. Analysis of the material used showed that all of them came from the great Greenland irons (Cape York). The age of the sites shows that the Greenland irons were being used for tools as early as 1000 BC and the tools from it were spread out over 1000 miles away! There is no doubt that the NWA area was "cleaned out" of all the iron meteorites that could be found thousands of years ago. Of course, they missed a few. But if the NWA meteorites reflected the "normal" distribution of irons and stones, there would be many, many more irons. One thing to bear in mind is that the present condition of north Africa and the Saharan region is a fairly recent development. In Roman times, these lands were a critical region of the Empire, a "breadbasket" whose agricultural surplus fed millions all around the Mediterranean. Roman "plantations" extended a hundred miles or more into what is now desert where agriculture is vertually impossible in the present day. In the first millennium BC, great empires flourished in regions now completely desert -- Carthage in the west and Cyrene in the east. The descriptions of the lands they occupied are of temperate and well watered locales that now do not exist. The Romans became the great power in the Mediterranean by conquering Carthage (2nd century BC) and lost that power when north Africa was seized by the Vandals in the 5th century AD. You know the Vandals didn't bother to conquer north Africa because it was a land of sand! Practical, those Vandals. In still earlier times (3 to 8 thousand years ago), north Africa was a well watered grassland that was slowly drying out. French geologists (in the 1920's and 30's) have spent a great deal of effort tracing the old river courses in the Sahara back into the last glaciation. There's a huge amount of documentation on these. Obviously, these rivers didn't run through a sand desert. That's because the sand wasn't there until geologically recent times. The sand is produced by wind erosion in the upland region in the heart of the Sahara. Sand production is a feedback accelerated process in which sand erosion produces vastly more sand which produces vastly more erosion... You get the picture. The process is still going on. Sub-Saharan southern lands lose a few miles a year of their own productive land to the outflow of Saharan sand. The former rivers have retreated into sub-surface aquifers, but their connectivity and continuity is demonstrated by tracing the distribution of unique species of underground fish recovered from ancient very deep wells. Interestingly enough, the buried rivers of the eastern Sahara appear to be connected (or have been connected) to a similar network of buried rivers in the Middle East! They share the same unique species. There is plentiful evidence that the present north African deserts had a substantial population in ancient times. There are rock carvings galore, showing scenes of big game hunting and tribal life in places hundreds of miles from any settled human habitation today. After millennia of collecting, there are still plentiful human stone artifacts to be found everywhere in the "desert," in far greater amounts than meteorites! And Dean Bessey sells them, too! I'm certain irons were continuously collected and shipped off into Roman times and beyond, just as meteorites are today. We need to bear in mind these short term geological changes when trying to establish weathering ages for "desert" meteorites. For example, many of the "dry lakes" in the western US were wet lakes 10,000 years ago. In fact, there was a great lake, Lake Lahontan, in the inter-mountain basin back then, which was really a great lake, covering 8,000 square miles and up to 800 feet deep. <http://www.answers.com/topic/lake-lahontan> So, an NWA iron is a lucky find. Sterling Webb ------------------------------------------ Meteoriteshow wrote: > I don't know... I don't think so because it would be something linked to > differenciation, which occured at the very beggining of the Earth's life. As > Garren mentioned, I would rather go for the use of iron meteorites to > manufacture tools at the beggining of the 'age of iron'. > Anyway, I have no proof of that, and just mention suggestions. > I have heard also about an huge iron meteorite somewhere near then northern > pole, that had been used by men to make tools in the past, and was supposed > to be a holy stone. I do not remember exactly where it was, but I think > someone wrote something about it sometime ago on the list... > > Cheers > > Frederic > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Tom Knudson" <peregrineflier_at_npgcable.com> > To: "Meteoriteshow" <meteoriteshow_at_free.fr>; "Arizona Skies Meteorites" > <johnbirdsell_at_yahoo.com>; <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com> > Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 8:51 PM > Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] What are the latest Iron Falls? > > > Fr?d?ric Beroud wrote' > > > > "I always wondered why so few irons have been found so far in the Sahara > > Desert... I think that as most of the time they are heavier than OCs, the > > ones that landed over there are still under the surface, waiting fo > erosion > > to make them appearing... " > > > > Along those same lines, I wonder if Irons work their way down, not unlike > > gold in a gold pan, while the lighter material works it's was to the > > surface? > > > > > > Thanks, Tom > > peregrineflier <>< > > IMCA 6168 > > http://www.frontiernet.net/~peregrineflier/Peregrineflier.htm > > http://fstop.proboards24.com/ > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Meteoriteshow" <meteoriteshow_at_free.fr> > > To: "Arizona Skies Meteorites" <johnbirdsell_at_yahoo.com>; > > <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com> > > Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 12:00 PM > > Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] What are the latest Iron Falls? > > > > > > > Hi, > > > > > > I always wondered why so few irons have been found so far in the Sahara > > > Desert... I think that as most of the time they are heavier than OCs, > the > > > ones that landed over there are still under the surface, waiting fo > > erosion > > > to make them appearing... Another solution I thought of is that most of > > them > > > have been used in the prehistoric time for making tools, as the first > iron > > > tools to be made after the neolithic period were most probably made of > > > meteoritic material... > > > Does anybody have any other suggestion? > > > > > > Cheers, > > > > > > Fr?d?ric Beroud > > > www.meteoriteshow.com > > > IMCA # 2491 (http://www.meteoritecollectors.org/) > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: "Arizona Skies Meteorites" <johnbirdsell_at_yahoo.com> > > > To: <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com> > > > Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 6:56 PM > > > Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] What are the latest Iron Falls? > > > > > > > > > > Yes Martin, that is a gorgous piece with a beautiful > > > > rolled back lip. It is striking just how few iron > > > > falls there actually are. There must be thousands of > > > > chondritic falls over the same time span. It just goes > > > > to show that the rare desert irons that are coming out > > > > now reflect hundreds of thousands of years of > > > > accumulation. Once these have been picked clean we'll > > > > have a long time to wait for an equally rich hunting > > > > environment ;-) > > > > > > > > Cheers > > > > > > > > > > > > -John > > > > > > > > > > > > --- Martin Altmann <Altmann_at_Meteorite-Martin.de> > > > > wrote: > > > > > Not to forget the killer iron Ali Hmani had in > > > > > Munich, > > > > > must be a recent fall with that blueish fresh crust. > > > > > You can see him, holding that iron in the latest > > > > > Meteorite Magazine issue, > > > > > in Pilski's show report. > > > > > > > > > > Meow! > > > > > Martin > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > > > From: <bernd.pauli_at_paulinet.de> > > > > > To: <Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com> > > > > > Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 6:11 PM > > > > > Subject: [meteorite-list] What are the latest Iron > > > > > Falls? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > 1. What were the last 3 to 5 recorded iron > > > > > > falls around the world? Does it include SA? > > > > > > > > > > Kaposfüred - IVA - Hungary - 1995 > > > > > Ban Rong Du - Thailand - 1993 > > > > > Sterlitamak - IIIAB - former USSR - 1990 > > > > > Chisenga - Malawi - 1988 > > > > > Raghunathpura - IIAB - India - 1986 > > > > > Akyumak - IVA - Turkey - 1981 > > > > > Ningbo - IVA - China - 1975 > > > > > Juromenha - IIIAB - Portugal - 1968 > > > > > Muzaffarpur - IRANOM - India - 1964 > > > > > Bogou - IAB - Upper Volta - 1962 > > > > > Kayakent - IIIAB - Turkey - 1961 > > > > > Yardymly - IIICD - former USSR - 1959 > > > > > Sikhote-Alin - IIAB - former USSR - 1947 > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Best wishes, > > > > > > > > > > Bernd > > > > > > > > > > ______________________________________________ > > > > > Meteorite-list mailing list > > > > > Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com > > > > > > > > > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list > > > > > > > > > > ______________________________________________ > > > > > Meteorite-list mailing list > > > > > Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com > > > > > > > > > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list > > > > > > > > > > > > > Arizona Skies Meteorites > > > > > > > > ______________________________________________ > > > > Meteorite-list mailing list > > > > Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com > > > > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list > > > > > > > > > > ______________________________________________ > > > Meteorite-list mailing list > > > Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com > > > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > No virus found in this incoming message. > > > Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. > > > Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.7.1 - Release Date: 3/9/2005 > > > > > > > > > ______________________________________________ > Meteorite-list mailing list > Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list Received on Fri 11 Mar 2005 08:03:22 PM PST |
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