An Article In Meteorite-Times Magazine
by Jay Haynes

Asteroids Buzz Earth as Meteorites Pelt the Desert

The past few months have been exciting within the meteorite community. First off with the Tucson show was apparently a big hit (was not there myself but hope to be next year), a new meteorite fall, asteroids buzzing the planet as well as the first installment of what I would like to call "The Canadian Connection".

Seeing I was not at Tucson I suggest reading the article by Michael Blood in the previous issue on that topic. On Feb 10, 2002 at the Algerian/Moroccan border a meteorite shower occurred and hundreds if not thousands of rocks pelted the desert floor. According to Mike Farmer, a Berber by the name of Amhirich Omar was tending his camels when at around 4:00 p.m. local time he saw a light to the west which then passed overhead and later exploded raining rocks down on the desert. In short he went to the area he saw the objects fall and found dozens of black burned rocks all over the place. To see the full story please see Mike Farmer's website which I have listen at the end of this article. According to Mike Farmer who was out there roughly a month after the fall, most or the larger pieces of the meteorite fell within Algeria while the smaller ones were recovered in Morocco. Three prominent dealers brought this fascinating meteorite onto the open market. See Mike Farmer's website as listed below for more information on this meteorite & his expedition to the fall site. Rob Elliot of Fernlea Meteorites had a little contest of guessing the type of meteorite and whoever was closest or right on got a free sample of it and selling others for around $15.00/USD gram. Dean Bessey soon followed offering Bensour also at $15.00/gram. Mike Farmer then did a special introductory offer of $3.50/gram. (please correct me if I am wrong guys).

Recently, there has been new insight into potentially dangerous asteroids. On March 8th, an asteroid large enough to flatten a city zipped past the earth. This is not really a big deal seeing it happens quite often. However, it was not detected until 4 days after its pass. Officials say that it came at us from a cosmic blind spot. Asteroid 2002 EM7 came at the Earth from a point of space that is bathed in the sun's glare. If the asteroid would have pierced the atmosphere and disintegrated it would have released energy equivalent to that of a 4 megaton nuclear bomb. If it had impacted in a city the size of Atlanta, the entire city would have been flattened. Astronomers at JPL believe that this asteroid could in fact impact the earth on one of its future passes in 2093. This rock is quite small compared to others that regularly fly past the planet. A picture of 2002 EM7 could be found at: http://www.klet.cz/klenot/2002em7.html

Now for the Canadian Connection. The reason I decided to do this was because it seems that there is not a lot of information and up to date information on what is happening in the Canadian meteorite communities. The most recent news that I was able to come across was about the finding of what is the largest stony meteorite find in Manitoba. This meteorite now known as the Elm Creek meteorite was found in 1997 by Tom Wood while he was grading a dirt road roughly south-east of Elm Creek. The 8.2 kilogram stone was later taken to Dan Lockwood who identified it as a meteorite. The Canadian Prairie Meteorite Search has uncovered many meteorites and will uncover many more. According to Dan Lockwood "More than a dozen unconfirmed new meteorites are thought to be in the hands of farming families across the prairies." It has not been announced the classification of this meteorite however I will find out for my next installment.

That's about it for this issue. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it and I will be back next issue reporting the meteorite news as I get it.

Websites Used as Resources in this Article:

Bensour

Dean Bessy: www.meteoriteshop.com
Mike Farmer: www.meteoritehunter.com
Rob Elliot: www.meteorites.uk.com

Asteroid 2002 EM7

http://spaceguard.dlr.de/sgf/start_eng.htm
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2002/0401/tec-neat-04-01-02.asp
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/03/19/asteroid.blindside/

Canadian Meteorite News

http://www.fp.ucalgary.ca/unicomm/news/March_02/meteorite.htm
http://www.cosmiverse.com/space03180202.html