On the 455th birthday of William Shakespeare’s birth, a CM2 stony meteorite crashed into Costa Rica, a country one-seventh the size of my Montana and one-third the population. What that means is that I can imagine what its like there in terms of population density and size, but with less snow, fewer grizzly bears, and no ponderosa pine trees.
Murchison, a CM2 that fell in 1969, and Mighei, a CM2 that fell in 1889 are both are fairly illusive specimens for collectors today. However I have good memories of both stone locations from a collection standpoint having multiple specimens of them move in and out of my hand. So when Blane Reed sent out a list of his latest offerings, I read a description of a complete oriented individual of Aquas Zacas that I couldn’t pass up because it reminded me of what I’d read in history.
Even with all the unknowns still surrounding the 23 April, 2019 fall, Aquas Zacas was a stone whose fall I wanted a part of. And seeing a list of meteorite friends in the Meteoritical Bulletin entry regarding Aquas Zacas just added icing on the carbonaceous cake. The likes Mike Farmer, Achim Karl, Robert Ward and Kevin Kichinka are all meteorite people with whom from I am no more that one degree of separation. Not that that’s much of reason, but enough given my desire for historically important specimens usually over shadows anything that might fall in the 21st century.
Anyway, back on topic, I found the Aquas Zacas to be an inspirational specimen from a collecting point of view. I was not an avid meteorite collector back in 1969 when Murchison fell so I didn’t want on Aguas Zarcas from a collecting point of view. Reliving non-existent memories perhaps?
Murchison entered my collection back in the early 1990s, still over 20 years after it fell. But I only missed Aguas Zarcas by a couple months. Either way, I am enjoying my small complete oriented individual of Aguas Zarcas as if it was late in 1969. Not a bad way to celebrate the 50 year anniversary for that game changing stone smelly amino acid-filled meteorite that fell in Down Under just two months after the moon landing.
Until next time….
