[meteorite-list] Another Meteorite Recovered in Norway

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Aug 9 12:13:49 2006
Message-ID: <200608091611.JAA21396_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1415787.ece

Meteorite in Moss
Rolf L. Larsen
Aftenpoften (Norway)
August 9, 2006

For the first time since 1969 a meteorite has gone through a European roof.

The nearly 700 gram (24.7 ounce) meteorite landed on the roof of a
warehouse belonging to wholesale group Norgesgruppen in Moss, a town 65
kilometers south of the capital in the Oslo fjord.

The object was found last week after a water leak appeared in a warehouse.

"It must have had incredible speed and force, and had made a hole in a
steel plate in the roof. People from a firm we hired in to find the
reason for the leak found a black stone in the roof construction,"
Norgesgruppen press contact Per Roskifte told Aftenposten.no.

Today Astronomer Knut J?rgen R?ed ?degaard from the Astrophysics
Institute and Natural History Museum director Elen Roaldset were present
to accept the Norgesgruppen meteorite.

"It has been a fantastic meteorite summer. This is a very rare
meteorite, a so-called carbon meteorite, and it will get a fine spot
amongst our others at the museum," said geologist Roaldset.

"This is an exceptional find! This is the first time since 1969 that a
meteorite has gone through a roof anywhere in Europe. The meteorite is a
so-called carbon - CO-meteorite. Previously only five falls of
CO-meteorites have been observed on Earth, and the last one occurred in
Russia in 1937," said an enthusiastic ?degaard.

On July 14 a huge fireball flared across the sky in the southeast part
of eastern Norway. Witnesses spread across a large area could observe
the object while it roared and thundered across from a distance of up to
300 kilometers. The Norgesgruppen meteorite is part of this object that
broke up over eastern Norway.

Bus driver Ragnar Martinsen was sitting in his cabin outhouse when he
heard the noise.

"I thought it was an exercise at Rygge Air Station. The bang and
rumbling in the air over the cabin was terrible," Martinsen told
Aftenposten on July 16. A small, 35-gram piece of stone hit the ground a
few meters away from him, an extremely rare sighting of impact.

Two days later a new and much larger piece of the meteorite was found in
a garden near Moss. This 750-gram chunk hit a plum tree, breaking off
three branches before burying itself seven centimeters (3 inches) deep
in the lawn. The rock was found after the Johansen family returned from
their holiday and tried to mow the lawn.

These three finds are the only pieces of the July 14th sighting found so
far - and ?degaard urges people in the area to keep looking for more.
Received on Wed 09 Aug 2006 12:11:09 PM PDT