An August 1858 Witnessed Fall: Zmenj, Belarus Zmenj: Rare Cubed In the classic blending of a howardite, the emerald colored inclusions of diogenite from the asteroidal underworld mingle with the ashen hues of of the eucrite upper class. It’s tough to know where to start describing the collectable rarity of a meteorite such as Zmenj. Maybe with the country
A June 1879 Witnessed Fall: Nogoya, Argentina Nogoya: Cosmic Coal? ” – it must be admitted that there is a large array of arguments in favor of the existence of extraterrestrial life.” Black gold! While beauty is in the eye of the educated, Nogoya’s ancestors may have seeded the earth with the chemicals needed to speed the evolution of life
A May 1860 Witnessed Fall: New Concord, Ohio The New Concord Meteorite Let’s stop kicking a dead horse. Even if New Concord did not kill a calf, let alone hit one, this witnessed fall is a hammer anyway. Sixty-one years before John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, was born, a meteorite fell in the county of his
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Updated: Martin Horejsi’s Meteorite Books Website An April 1919 Witnessed Fall: Cumberland Falls, Kentucky The Cumberland Falls Falls Fall. Busy Cumbering both Science and Nature No matter how you slice it, the unique crust of Cumberland Falls looks makes individuals look like a loaf of bread. The Domesday Book written in the year 1086 contains the results of a
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Updated: Martin Horejsi’s Meteorite Books Website A March 1960 Witnessed Fall: Bruderheim, Canada Bruderheim. Timing is Everything. A rolling landscape of fresh fusion crust blankets this 72% complete stone of Bruderheim. Falling nearly vertically onto a frozen, snow covered land, many individuals of Bruderheim retained their crust intact. Over the past couple decades that I have been collecting meteorites, I’ve
Bruderheim, Canada Bruderheim. Timing is Everything. Read Post »
Updated: Martin Horejsi’s Meteorite Books Website A February 1951 Witnessed Fall: Dubrovnik, Croatia Dubrovnik: A Lumberjack Meteorite from the land of Oak Forests Resting on a one centimeter cube, it is easy to see this sample of Dubrovnik is not large. But according to the distribution listed in the Catalogue of Meteorites, this piece is the seventh largest in any
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Updated: Martin Horejsi’s Meteorite Books Website A January 1, 1869 Witnessed Fall: Hessle, Sweden It’s a Baseball! It’s a Lollypop! It’s Gunpowder! Nope, it’s just a New Years Day Meteorite Like cosmic gumballs, licorice of course, these fell on New Years Day in 1869 just six degrees shy of the Arctic Circle. But because of where they fell, maybe they
Updated: Martin Horejsi’s Meteorite Books Website A December 1921 Witnessed Fall: Beyrout, Lebanon Beyrout, Lebanon Ending the year with a bang. Literally! As a “hut” hammerer, a New Year’s Eve fall, a LL3, a historic fall, and the only meteorite from its homeland, Beyrout has it all. Well, all except, much remaining material. With only 21% of the original 1100g
Beyrout, Lebanon: Ending the year with a Bang. Literally! Read Post »
Updated: Martin Horejsi’s Meteorite Books Website i i i A November 1492 Witnessed Fall: Ensisheim, France Ensisheim! The King of Meteorites Born in 1492. Christened in 1727. Baptized in 1881. The particular collecting genera in which I haunt is the intersection between science, culture and the fall of a meteorite. Using this epistemological triangulation, no other meteorite is as important
An October 1852 Witnessed Fall: Borkut, Ukraine The Borkut Meateorite: More Chondrite, Less Fat Early comparisons of the Borkut meteorite to others of the time led some scientists to conclude that Borkut had a higher chondrite to matrix ratio. This uncut face of Borkut shows the chondrule-rich landscape, yet not unlike a conglomerate sedimentary rock found here on earth. How
A September 1886 Witnessed Fall: Novo Urei, Russia Novo Urei: The Stuff of Legends! Putting the Urei in Ureilite and the Muffin Hypothesis Novo Urei is truly the stuff of legends. Long before I knew the specific details of its fall and subsequent scientific discoveries about it, I’d heard tales about an amazing meteorite fall full of unforgettable events.
An August 1882 Witnessed Fall: Pirgunje, Bangladesh No Next of Kin Pirgunje and its Anticedents Falling 128 years ago this month, the L6 chondrite Pirgunje reminds, us, well me anyway, why meteorites are coveted in collections. Even thought the crust and matrix of Pirgunje is similar to many other chondrites, facts including the age of this fall, its sub-kilo TKW,
A July 1939 Witnessed Fall: Washougal, Washington, USA Early Independence Day Fireworks -and my Wife’s Birthday Meteorite! As the only witnessed fall in state of Washington, Washougal is prized beyond its rare classification and miniscule total known weight. Washougal is a beautiful stone, and a valuable entry at any size into any collection. Reeking with diogenite crystals and a eucritic
A June 1867 Witnessed Fall: Tadjera, Algeria The Tadjerites: Black as Coal. Hard as Rock. Ordinary as a Chondrite. One hundred forty-three years ago this month, “A luminous body was seen to descent towards the earth, and when arrived at a certain height to burst into fragments.” The report published August 5th, 1867 continues, “The flash of light was
