[meteorite-list] Yummie, meteorites?]

From: Sterling K. Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Mar 21 13:24:57 2005
Message-ID: <42368F8D.86BF9105_at_bhil.com>

Hi, Dave,

    No query should go unanswered, even if the answerer knows nothing about
the subject (like me). But naturally, I have a "guestimate"! I base my
guess on the behavior of only two herbivores: cows and deer, which rural
Illinois has in abundance. (We don't have game, just critters.)
    The only thing I've ever seen them lick is salt, salt, salt. Actually,
I've thought that the exotic shapes left by cows licking a block of pink
salt are so fanciful that I'm amazed that no enterprising soul hasn't
gathered them up, spray painted them, and sold them as modern art. Seems
like a good potential racket.
    If it's salt herbivores are after, I doubt they'd lick a meteorite,
where a useful amount of salt would not be found. As for licking for iron,
there is iron aplenty in purer form in many earthy items and I've never seen
a cow or deer lick for it.
    Just my two cents. One country opinion, worth about what most country
opinions are worth... Ask me about the weather... or the price of acreage...
or the habits of hogs.
    As for why Wyoming doesn't seem to have those big multi-100 kilo chucks
of meteorite you'd like to find, well, here's my theory. Most meteorites
are stones, and most stones are weak and poorly consolidated rocks and very
porous. Wyoming has nasty cold winters and nice blistering summers (or so
I've heard; I can testify to the summers) with just enough precip to wet a
stone.
    A strong annual freeze-thaw cycle will reduce a stone meteorite to
crumbs in a few decades, certainly in a century or two. So, instead of
10,000 years accumulation of meteorites since the last glaciation, you may
only have an accumulation that goes back to the Civil War! That would cut
the numbers on the ground to 1/50 of what's fallen since 8000 BC.
    Illinois, for example, is roughly the size of Wyoming (isn't it?) and
has eight meteorites. We have BENLD, a chondrite Fall (hit a car);
BLOOMINGTON, a chondrite Fall (hit a house); HAVANA, a iron Find (two iron
beads in a Mound Builder tomb); MARENGO, a chondrite Find; PARK FOREST, a
chondrite Fall (hit lots of stuff); SOUTH DIXON, type unknown, stone lost;
TILDEN, a witnessed chondrite Fall; TOULON, a chondrite Find; WOODBINE, a
silicated iron Find (wrecked a plow). No chondrite found since 1962, and
compare Illinois' poor showing to the richness of Kansas meteorites!
    If you subtract the rocks that cars and houses (Benld, Park Forest,
Bloomington), take away the lost stone (South Dixon), throw out the
archeological find (Havana), and omit the rock that wrecked the plow
(Woodbine) -- all the ones that grabbed our attention the hard way -- what's
left?
    A big fireball in a dark county (Tilden) and two little chrondrites,
probably recent falls -- that's it. I estimate that with Illinois' good
freeze and thaw cycle plus 40 inches of rain a year, a poor chondrite has
only 20 to 30 years before it turns into topsoil!
    In the quiet at 1:30 am, I imagine that I can hear the thud of
meteorites falling in the fields, to be rained on, dissolved, destroyed, and
ignored by air-conditioned tractor drivers with their stereos blazing, who
can't see the ground they plow.
    I figure Wyoming's luck to be not much better.


Sterling Webb
--------------------------------------------------------
David Freeman wrote:

> Dear List;
> I did not receive any feed back on this thread other than five well
> meaning friends thinking that I did indeed crack.
> I think is is worthy of a short visit to ponder the subject.
> We had in the past addressed hunting meteorites with animals and it was
> some what more fun than dropping bowling balls from airplanes....
>
> Could and would herbivores lick meteorites for the minerals?
>
> DF
> ISEE
>
> -------- Original Message --------BELOW:
>
> Dear List, Bernd;
> Is there any evidence that animals have licked meteorites for the
> minerals in them? I know some humans that have tasted meteorite dust
> for the novelty but am very curious if any signs of mostly herbivores
> licking or consuming meteorites for the iron, other minerals exists?
> In the area here where meteorites should be plentiful, there are none to
> be found. Cretaceous sandstone's on the surface for hundreds of
> thousands of years BUT where antelope, sheep spend quite a bit of time
> in the winter months with not much to eat but sagebrush. I just wonder
> if they would lick the ground as in salt/mineral licks (none here
> locally) and go for the iron in the meteorites.
> Any thoughts, besides I have cracked?
> Curious,
> Dave F.
> mjwy
>
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Received on Tue 15 Mar 2005 02:32:29 AM PST