[meteorite-list] How many are there

From: Lasse Lindh <3l_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:22:54 +0100
Message-ID: <47BDF9BE.9010409_at_comhem.se>

Hi all

There is one question that I have tried to find answer to and that is:
How many meteorites are there waiting to be found? Iv'e asked this
question in other forums but never got a straight answer. Probably
because no one knows.. ;o) Thats understandable. But purely theoretical.
How many meteorites fell to earth each year? One number that is
mentioned is that it's estimated that some 5-6000 meteorites over 100
gram or 80.000 meteorites over 10 gram do fell each year over the whole
Earth. That's a significant number, but spread out over the whole
planet, it's very little per square mile.

Wilson made a search on 4 square miles sometime in the 50:ies. He found
159 meteorites. I do not know how he performed this search, but I reckon
he used metal detectors and magnets that were very much inferior with
todays. He might not even have bothered to search below the surface for
small ones and only took the ones he saw and those that were detected by
his MD, if he was usinf one.
If we were to do the same search today in the same area, with the best
tools that we got, I wonder how many additional meteories that we would
find?

My question is, how many meteories can we expect if we count in all the
small ones down to 1 gram in the total. If the statistics hold for
meteorites as in many other things, the amount will significantly
increase the smaller the stones are.

This is an interesting question especially for us that does not live in
a dry desert area or have the means or money to travel there a few times
each year. If that number is high enough, it might be worth while to
search with magnets in an area were meteories never get to be older than
maybe 500 years...

regards

Lasse
Received on Thu 21 Feb 2008 05:22:54 PM PST