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The Peekskill Meteorite’s Silver Anniversary: 1992 to 2017

Its hard to believe that the Peekskill Meteorite is already a quarter-century old.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Peekskill Meteorites, I am sharing some pictures of my slice along with a few words about the features that makes Peekskill such a wonderful specimen beyond the rather impressive artifacts of its fall.

 

Peekskill is one of those meteorites whose fame guarantees that it will be represented in any serious collection. Peekskill has it’s own displays in many museums, especially New York’s American Museum of Natural History. The AMNH houses one of the greatest meteorite collections in the world including the largest meteorite in captivity. And the AMNH is only an hour’s drive south of where Peekskill had its little fender bender with a 12 year old Chevy Malibu.

 

Peekskill meteorite
Peekskill is a Monomict Breccia H6 Chondrite. As a monmict, the broken pieces are part of the same matrix. Like a river of broken ice chunks, the pieces of this cosmic puzzle are all there, just not in they right order.

Notice the rich metal flake of this H chondrite. Shiny iron is everywhere, but scattered throughout the slice like a dusting of metal snowflakes across a rocky landscape.

 

Peekskill is known for it’s especially thick crust that developed over the long flight it had through earth’s atmosphere. A flight that was heavily photographed at the time. In fact it was not until the Chelyabinsk, Russia fall of 2013 that better video was captured of a meteorite captured by the earth.

 

A further treat of the crust is the rich dark color and the bubbly surface. Sometimes it takes a magnifying glass to truly appreciate fusion crust.

 

The 23 gram slice in my collection was about third or fourth representative as I upgraded through the years. Some meteorites are worth constant attention, and when a better piece is available, one must strike while the iron (and the stone) is hot, so to speak.

 

From Weston to Creston: A compendium of Witnessed US Meteorite Falls 1807-2016. 

And almost as if to celebrate the Silver Anniversary of the American meteorite named Peekskill, Frank Cressy has published a new book about Witnessed Meteorite Falls in the United States. The book From Weston to Creston contains 257 pages and covers 169 meteorites of which 152 are documented witnessed falls, and 17 are probable or possible meteorite falls.  Thanks Frank!
(Click to email Frank for ordering details)

Until next time….

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