[meteorite-list] Apex - Colorado - possible MB correction

From: Walter L. Newton <newtonw2_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat Jul 1 15:54:03 2006
Message-ID: <000b01c69d48$0f7d3db0$6ad70818_at_walter>

I just received a email from Jeff Grossman at the MB database. He questioned
my research on the correct find spot for the Apex Colorado find. I will not
post his reply here, but I will post MY rely back to him

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Jeff

I contacted Logan Ivy at the museum last week. He confirmed that the
research at the Magic Mountain site was done by Robert Akerley, in 1938, and
he found the meteorite and gave it to the museum.

Further confirmation for the actual location of the Magic Mountain site
itself can be found in William "Bill" Butler's dissertation on Magic
Mountain published in the 1980s.

Considering the following confirmed facts...

1) Robert Akerley dug at the Magic Mountain Plains Indian encampment.
2) The encampment was at the mouth of the Apex Gulch.
3) Robert Akerley found a 6.1 gram meteorite.
4) The meteorite exists in the collection of the Denver Museum of Nature and
Science
5) The meteorite was officially classified
6) The actual location of the Magic Mountain site is well know and can be
confirmed by a college dissertation.
7) The mesa top location of the coordinates in the MB database does not
match any of the other facts.

In Matthew L. Morgan's booklet "The Handbook of Colorado Meteorites,"
published by the Colorado Geological Survey, he uses the coordinates from
the MB database but his text descriptions reads as follows...

"Stone. Olivine-hypersthene chondrite (L6). A small single stone was found
at the mouth of Apex Gulch, near the Heritage Village shopping center, 3.2
km south of Golden."

I would say using the center of the existing Apex Park site would be a whole
lot closer than a barren mesa top which has no relation to the other facts.

I'm not sure what facts would be missing here? As far as the origin of the
coordinates themselves, Mr. Ivy said...

"Google Earth probably uses WGS84 as a datum, but the map coordinates were
probably derived from a USGS topo sheet, which will use the NAD27 datum.
Try using Topozone.com.
Logan Ivy"

Not matter where the original coordinates came from, they appear wrong. And
since we have narrative that describes the find site, and the current state
of the site still matches the narrative, I suspect that the narrative
correctly locates the find spot.

If you have any other questions, please email me.

Thank you.

Walter L. Newton

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Maybe I am missing something here. His reply to me seemed to be strangely
dismissive. Do these folks get their feathers easily ruffled if you question
some of their facts and figures? I was just trying to be helpful, not
harmful.

Walter L. Newton
Golden, Co.
Received on Sat 01 Jul 2006 03:53:44 PM PDT