Accretion Desk

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/M/bo22258162.html For over three decades I have been collecting, studying and writing about meteorites from the perspective of their impact on culture, society and science. So I’m more than a little excited about this book. Golia blends the magic of meteorites across time and ownership. The book is filled with stories, example, and exceptional pictures. At no time does it

At 5:30 in the morning on November 17, 1981, a fireball exploded high above the citizens Ban Klang and Chiang-Khan in the province of Loei in Thailand. Loud thunderous reports rolled across the land right before a shower of stones pelted the landscape. Scientists arrived on scene several days after the locals had gathered up all the easy-to-find pieces that amounted

Monroe is a brecciated H4 chondrite that fell on October 31 in 1849 in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. The single recovered mass of 8.6kg was the second witnessed fall in North Carolina since becoming a state in 1789, and is one of 29 known North Carolina meteorites, and is the only witnessed fall in the world recorded for the year

It has been many years since I last visited the Windy City so I jumped at the chance this spring when a conference presented just such an opportunity. While Chicago is not much more windy that New York City, and even less windy than Boston, it certainly didn’t disappoint, especially along the long waterfront walk from downtown to the Field

Twelve years ago, the Tabor Meteorite celebrated it’s 250th birthday on this planet. But to me Tabor is so much more than just a historical witnessed meteorite fall of advanced age. Tabor, Czech Republic is also the land of the people on my father’s side. In fact, there is no reason to think that my ancestors missed out on any

Thirty minutes before noon on May 15th 1900, a single stone flew down from space through a clear blue sky. It attracted the attention of those in that region of Alabama having generated the sound of thunder during its supersonic passage through the thin atmosphere of earth. Using the metaphors of the day, one witness described the meteor’s noise as

The Borodino meteorite takes its name from the town of Borodino, Russia. Two days after the meteorite’s fall, the hamlet also extended its name to to the immensely bloody “Battle of Borodino.” For this installment of The Accretion Desk, I would like you do download and listen to the linked music file of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture while reading this story. Link:

We are just six short years from the bicentennial of the fall of the Juvinas, France meteorite. Back in 1821, an enormously important meteorite contribution fell from the sky. As a 90kg eucrite achondirte, it became a staple in meteorite laboratories all over the world and throughout the past two centuries. The story of the fall was detailed in the

          Until next time….

Avanhandava is a stone not usually represented in private collections, and even more rarely in anything larger than a gram or two. The distribution of Avanhandava is very low even though there are over nine kilograms in circulation. Avanhandava fell in San Paulo, Brazil in 1952. It is listed as an H4, S2, and despite it’s mundaneness, Avanhandava has found

The fall of the Soko-Banja, Serbia (Yugoslavia) chondrite At approximately two in the afternoon on October 13, 1877, a thunderous noise described by witnesses as “Batteries of cannon firing briskly” was heard, followed by a “violent concussion of air.” Then rocks were strewn around the region. Other witnesses further away described the event as “two explosions like salvoes of artillery

  Until next time.

In celebration of the publication release of Michael Blood’s new book titled Aspects of Meteorite Orientation I thought I would share a couple oriented specimens I picked up in Tucson years ago. They were part of a set of Juancheng individuals that were collected by school children and later sold as a fundraiser for the school. I sold all of the

Way back in the summer of 2002 in this very ezine I wrote a piece about the Independence, Missouri chondrite, an observed fall from 1917. The single 880g mass was recovered shortly after it fell by Edward Keesling who “heard a hissing/buzzing sound, and then observed a dark object falling to the ground on the side of a dirt road.”

In 1933, a 2.25kg meteorite was discovered in the community of Marsland, Nebraska. While not technically Mars, Marsland is, you have to admit, a pretty cool name for a meteorite even if only an H5. Marsland was not named after the wonderful Red Planet, but instead for Thomas Marsland, the general freight manager for the railroad at the time of