Linum, Germany:It’s What’s For Breakfast! |
Linum is one of those rare meteorites whose date of fall is within a few years of its TKW in grams. In this case, the Linum fell in 1854 with a total known weight of 1862 grams. Mike Bandli has an excellent description of the fall of Linum, translated by Werner Schroer on his website. Here’s a taste from the story: Shortly before 8 o’clock, around the time of breakfast, on the 5th of September of the year, I was standing on the digging fields that are located near the meadows of the Wustrau farm. There were no clouds in the sky, the air was clear, the water was still. I was intrigued by a strange noise; it was as if the windmills of the adjacent digging plant were spinning and I wondered why this could be happening when no wind was around. |
The amazing crust is so evenly distributed along the edge of my slice that it’s as if the layer of crust was manufactured separately from the stone, then installed after landing. |
| The Linum chondrite fell a full century before the historic-feeling Sylacauga, Alabama meteorite.Well, perhaps Ann Elizabeth Hodges who was on the receiving end of the Sylacauga stone didn’t think it felt quite so historic. |
| For an L6, Linum does have some very nice chondrules including the large, almost perfectly circular spherical cross-section in the upper left of this slice. |
Even before the summer solstice, this year has proven itself an exciting one for meteorite aficionados. But that is not reason enough to stop looking backwards for exciting meteorite falls. And there is still a wealth of great stories from the 1800s including that of Linum, Germany.
Until next time….
