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Meteorite Times Magazine is a monthly collection of meteorite and tektite articles devoted to the enjoyment,
education, and preservation of meteorites, tektites, and impact structures.
Meteorite Times Magazine Articles by James Tobin
| Busy Month of Meteorite Things
The Meteorite Exchange had one of its Tektite Parties a couple weeks ago. The theme was Sikhote-Alin. So I brought for show-and-tell some of my oriented and torn apart SAs. I have always been interested in meteorites that have been damaged. I have quite a collection at this point of iron slices that have cracks or show pulled and twisted crystals. I have also gathered up a few individuals that have torn out crystals. What is rather amazing is that if you lay a piece with a torn out crystal against a slice of Sikhote-Alin you can match the angles perfectly. I have attempted to show this in photos here.
We watched the old Russian documentary of the Sikhote-Alin
fall. It is a great piece of meteorite history. We want to thank
Jeff and Sergey for their wonderful work in putting English
captioning to the film. Seeing the labor used to find and dig out the meteorites was amazing. I was really interested in the way they set up magnetometers over the craters to locate the correct spot to dig. Just remarkable how low tech it was compared to today. I knew the location of the fall was rather remote, but the film really brings to life the hardships of working the site in the 1950’s. Even today those I know who have been there have hiked miles through dense forest to reach the site. The film shows the signs placed there declaring it a National Park. As such in America it would be off limits to hunting for meteorites. I suspect it is there also, which makes most of the hunting done recently and in past decades, very suspect. Same as what occurs in other places all the time. Every one brought something to show.
We had a great presentation from Bob Verish on California meteorites and the process of solving pairing issues. In the past some of the early dry lake meteorites finds have had their histories muddle up. But, many of those problems have now been resolved through Bob’s efforts. Rob Matson brought along a lot of his meteorite finds. Always great to see what he has been doing. A wonderful meal is served at these events and that was the case again. We played with space rocks late into the night and finally went home to happy meteorite dreams when we fell asleep.
We have not had these events as often lately as we once did. They are such a great fun time I would like to see us get back into a regular schedule. The Meteorite Exchange has gotten another large chondrite to cut and sell. So I now have several to get down to work on. I have been a little lazy about doing my lapidary work for the business. But, I think it is time to get some done. Maybe I will order a new blade or two this next week; do some planning and start preparing slices soon. Could make some thin sections as well. Always nice to offer thin sections of meteorites right along with the regular slabs.
I know some of the collectors like that. Of course all that could get delayed a week if we get the chance to do some hunting in the desert. Very tentative plans for a hunt were suggested at the party. I know for me it has been way too long since I was out. It is time to find some more meteorites. It is also time for me to get a couple classified that were found a while back. I have been so bad about cutting off a piece of them and sending them to a lab. I think they will be the first stones I cut when I get back to the saw. I’m always on the look out for Meteor Crater memorabilia and found some on ebay
this last month. |
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