Meteorite-Times 2014 3.Pdf

Meteorite Times Magazine

Contents by Editor

Featured Articles

Accretion Desk by Martin Horejsi Jim’s Fragments by Jim Tobin Meteorite Market Trends by Michael Blood Bob’s Findings by Robert Verish Micro Visions by John Kashuba Norm’s Tektite Teasers by Norm Lehrman Mr. Monning’s Collection by Anne Black IMCA Insights by The IMCA Team Meteorite of the Month by Editor Tektite of the Month by Editor

Materials contained in and linked to from this website do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of The Meteorite Exchange, Inc., nor those of any person connected therewith. In no event shall The Meteorite Exchange, Inc. be responsible for, nor liable for, exposure to any such material in any form by any person or persons, whether written, graphic, audio or otherwise, presented on this or by any other website, web page or other cyber location linked to from this website. The Meteorite Exchange, Inc. does not endorse, edit nor hold any copyright interest in any material found on any website, web page or other cyber location linked to from this website.

The Meteorite Exchange, Inc. shall not be held liable for any misinformation by any author, dealer and or seller. In no event will The Meteorite Exchange, Inc. be liable for any damages, including any loss of profits, lost savings, or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, consequential, or other damages arising out of this service.

No reproduction of copyrighted material is allowed by any means without prior written permission of the copyright owner. Meteorite Times Magazine

Soko-Banja: LL4 Artillery from the Sky by Martin Horejsi The fall of the Soko-Banja, Serbia (Yugoslavia) chondrite

Like cement from the heavens, the Soko-Banja chondrite crashed into history back in 1877.

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 accompanied by a brilliant display of light.” The light was described as like that which “attends the bursting of shells.”

Furthermore, a dense black smoke was observed quite high in the sky, and it “broke into three columns, and gradually changed to a white smoke.” As an LL4 Chondrite, it has well preserved and spherical chondrules such as this beauty sprouting from bow of this space ship.

Another description of the fall described the noise as lasting “for some time, and then the sound resembled the firing of musketry. The air appeared to be shaken.”

Following the explosive sound, stones fell to earth in an area described as “a mile and a half in length and a half a mile in breadth.” In other words, a classic ellipsoid strewn field.

One stone, weighing 10 okas (~22.5 Austrian pounds), landed in front of a house burying itself “deep in the earth.” Another stone, this one weighing 30 okas landed at Scherbanowaz, near Rtanj Berg. Its mass of almost 70 Austrian pounds became the main mass of the fall now known as Soko-Banja.

Peasants in the area who experienced the fall described one stone the size of a sack of flour that struck a rocky surface and “was dashed to fragments.”

Additional descriptions of particular stones included one of 23 okas that fell in the village of Scherbanowaz, and “penetrated the soil to a depth of four feet.” Another stone of 15 okas fell “near the vineyard at Soko-Banja, and reached a depth of three feet.”

Interesting dark inclusions abound in Soko-Banja. The contrast between the matrix and the inclusions was noted early in the published descriptions of these unusual stones from the sky.

One piece of note is a fragment described as 2 okas in weight and “fell on a pear tree, and then descended to the ground. A man under the tree took it in his hand, and received the impression that the mass was still warm.”

It was deduced that the explosion of the bolide occurred at 7000 meters above the earth due to the 25 second lag between light and sound.

The interior of the meteorite was described as consisting of “spherules of various sizes, some brown, some yellow, cemented together by and ash-grey material, and presents the appearance of a trachytic lava.” The James DuPont Meteorite Collection let loose of this specimen back in April of 1995 where it entered the collection of Jim Schwade. A decade later it moved into my collection.

As a historical witnessed fall, Soko-Banja is a classic case doing more to confirm the understanding about meteorites at the time rather than adding new information. However, 137 years later, Soko-Banja is an important place holder in many institutions due to is relatively rare class of LL4, and by the collection of diverse but converging perspectives about its fall.

Until next time…

Meteorite Times Magazine

The 2014 Tucson Gem and Mineral Show Report by James Tobin

This is a large oriented Chelyabinsk meteorite.

Well another Tucson Gem and Mineral Show has come and gone. And I will not make you wait until the end for what I thought about this one. I think we did more good work as a business and had more fun and spent more great time with friends then ever before.

I had a little nervousness about the trip because we were leaving for Tucson a couple days later than we usually do. But, those feeling proved to be unfounded as there was material for us to buy and we found almost everything that we had wanted to get. As for me I went without a list really except I wanted some tiny Chelyabinsk baby meteorites. There will be a lot of Chelyabinsk pictures in this article I made sure to get some since no one knows how much there will be in the future.

Here are a couple pictures of tiny oriented Chelyabinsk meteorites balanced on the head of a pin. Our plane landed at about 3 pm Tucson time. Which gave us enough time to run to our hotel and check in after getting the rental car and head back down to the Tucson City Center Hotel and spend a little time before going the few blocks to El Charro Restaurant for the yearly IMCA dinner. I found a few baby Chelyabinsk right off that were nice. I would later find some even smaller Chelyabinsk and I would buy about 60 of those. I brought back the lowest weight of meteorites I have in many years but I am sure I brought back the highest number of individual stones ever.

New acquisitions for my collection need to have a higher entertainment factor than they did in the past. And I love nothing more than putting tiny stones under the digital microscope and studying them in closeup detail. Or taking a big chunk of time to photograph them with my macro setup. Guess I got hooked on tiny meteorites after Holbrook two years ago.

We had a great time at the IMCA dinner. We ate with Norm and Cookie Lehrman and Bob and Moni Verish were just a chair away. We got to see a good number of other friends. The food was as always very good but it really is the camaraderie that makes this event so great. I caught up on family activities and the year’s gardening with Norm and Cookie. I had planted a vegetable garden and built a greenhouse since last year and they grow a lot of their own vegetables too.

Bob was as always excited about the most recent meteorites he had recovered. He and Moni were both pretty thrilled with the pictures Paul and I have gotten of the night sky. They have been with us many times when we had scopes and enjoyed hours of stargazing with us after hunting meteorites all day. It started to rain about 9 pm and we were all in the patio area so Paul and I called it a night; said our goodbyes and headed to the hotel. The next day would begin our work.

Friday morning came slowly for me after a long night of tossing and turning with little sleep. We had our traditional breakfast at the Denny’s near the hotel and headed to our first stop; a visit with Mike Miller at the Ramada. As always his room sparkled with beautifully etched irons. We chatted a while and got slices of a few meteorites. We made our way around the corner to Blaine Reed’s room. As always he was sitting on the bed talking to a couple customers. We looked around chatted with him and I found a piece of Saratov that he had. I have a nice slice of Saratov already but I have been looking for a more chunky piece for a while that I can extract the chondrules from. If you handle Saratov at all it will start to shed chondrules. But I wanted to not get chondrules that were cut on one edge. That is what I would get too many of with the piece I already had. The piece Blaine had was much thicker and would give me masses of chondrules only a fraction of which would be nicked by a diamond blade. By the time I got home the piece already had dozens of chondrules in the plastic baggie ready to pick out with tweezers. This is the chunky slice of Saratov a very friable L4 chondrite and witnessed fall from September 6, 1918. Below is a shot of some of the chondrules had have been extracted for my research project already. We went around the end of the building and just really glanced at Said’s room. As fate would have it we would return to get some nice material later to his room. But, right then we needed to move along. We knew we had a full day of work ahead and that we needed to be down the road.

We always spend two or three hours with Erich and Silvia whom we have known for many years. So as to not shorten our time with them we hit the area behind the Days Inn and then made our way back to their hotel for the rest of the afternoon. There was another dealer there also that we always see. Behind the Day’s Inn I usually find some meteorites that I can not resist buying. This year was no different. I got just a single stone but it was quite fresh and about 70% complete. Nothing really special but it called out to me. While Paul briefly took care of a little business he had I walked quickly down to Cosmic Cutlery’s room and said hi to Bud Eisler. Pablo was there with the wonderful items that Lisa Marie and he had brought. But, time was not on my side so I had to hurry back and met up with Paul. We headed to Erich and Silvia’s suite. David Haas was there again this year and as always I found a few meteorites for my collection that I could not resist. Not that it takes a lot of effort I don’t put up much of a struggle. I got a nice slice of an anomalous mesosiderite, five oriented unclassified NWA stones that were quite cute, a piece of a NWA pallasite that was heavily weathered but would make for a nice photograph in a future book or article. I found a few pieces of Jbilet Winselwan CM2 and got those. We got a few nice things for the business and while Paul settled up there with them I said goodbye and headed to our other supplier to begin getting together the irons we get every year. I had picked out about half the material by the time Paul caught up with me and we figure doing it this way saved us a couple hours. He helped finish the selecting and we got done with time enough to head back to TCC for the rest of the afternoon. It was birthday bash evening and we had decided to eat before going since it is just too hard to eat there. We needed to return to our hotel and we had no plans to eat with friends that night. After dinner we made our way back to town and the Birthday Bash party for Geoff Notkin and Steve Arnold, which always includes the presenting of the year’s Harvey Awards. A great group was there again. We were able to finally hook up with Rob Wesel and Jason Phillips. It had been two years since we had seen them. Jason had gotten caught in the terrible snow storm that hit Dallas and had not been able to arrive on time. We were glad that he made it.

It was a smaller crowd I think as I was able to actually get the bar maid’s attention to order Paul and I some Diet Cokes. Richard Garcia was there and we got to chat with him about astrophotography and California stuff. We need to do some hunting and photograph together with him. Bill and Mike Jensen were there and we had fun talking with them. Geoff and Steve began their program for the evening and we all gathered toward the back of the room to hear them. They presented the Harveys and many deserving individuals were recognized none more worthy than Adam Bates who received the award for being a really good new guy in the community. We had gotten to meet him last year and were looking forward to spending some time the next day looking at his wonderful material. It had been a long day and another couple lay ahead of us still so we did call it an evening a little early.

After another poor night of sleep we were up for the Saturday of the show. We had planned to spend all the day at the Tucson City Center Hotel and see everyone that was there. We had a little list for the business and I had not been doing very much buying for myself so this was going to be a chance for me as well. We had our breakfast again and since we never have lunch at the show its our important meal. We had plans for dinner Saturday night with friends. We always get some pieces of Libyan Desert Glass at the show and we found a nice batch of that. Like everyone else we were looking for Chelyabinsk and we found it for a really fine price in every type you could want. We got some impact melt nodules, some individuals that were perfect and some that were broken on one spot to show off the insides. I saw as we were going through the material some pieces that were in the broken bin and were really slickensides pieces not broken, so I picked up those.

I joked with Edwin Thompson as we stopped by his room that we would be back 50 times during the show so as his room would fill up we would move on with a statement like just 48 more time then 46 more times. Course we did not really visit his room 50 times but we did get to spend some great time with him and Patrick this year. We got to sample his world famous guacamole and chips. Larry Sloan was there many of the visits and as always it was great to speak with him. He is one of the fine gentlemen of our community. But, then there are so many fine individuals in the community that it is just a wonderful experience going to Tucson every year.

We made our way to Anne Black’s room and had a nice visit with her and Molly Phoenix. I found a few meteorites there this year. Of the several I found I would have to say that the Deelfontein, the Orange River, and the Kyushu pieces were the nicest. I had been looking for a couple of them for a while. So gradually I was finding a few items for my collection at the show.

El Sampal is a very attractive medium octahedrite from Argentina and I found a nice slice of it in Anne’s room this year.

We moved next door to Aerolite Meteorites to see Geoff Notkin and his ever efficient and friendly staff. Geoff greeted us and signed a couple of books for us and we chatted for a moment but he was busy. We were able to arrange a dinner with a great group of people including he and Libby for the next night. We knew that was going to be a highlight of this year’s show. But he had work to do so we headed onward.

We always stop and see Pieter Heydelaar and Debra Morrissette at Global Treasures and find a few things to buy. This year we found a few individual meteorites and a nice slice of something we have never offered before. We chatted a long time with them until they also got busy.

Down the same hall brought us to Bruno and Carine’s room with their wonderful material. They had a kind of tough year but things worked out OK and they were in good spirits at the show. They have developed a feel for what works for us and always have a few meteorites we buy. It is fun talking to them they bring great stories and beautiful meteorites.

We gradually made our way through the hotel hitting most of the meteorite dealers. We were going to be back on Monday for several hours and would finish seeing a few then. We did see Adam Bates on Saturday. His room is a delight to visit. Such well prepared meteorites and nearly all are something really interesting. We had a great visit and got to know him a little better.

Mike Farmer was next to visit. We had seen him briefly two days earlier and he was bringing in some material for us to go through. So we made it to his room and got that material and something else as it turned out.

The afternoon had crept up on us and I suddenly realized that I had not spent any money the whole day. So it was a fast trip over to one dealer we had not visited yet to see what he had. He was one of the Russian dealers and we really needed to compare prices on Chelyabinsk anyway. Well, he had a box with some of the cutest tiny Chelyabinsk you would ever want to see. I had no problem finding a few dozen that I could not resist. Of course they did not weigh very much so you get a lot of bang for a buck with tiny meteorites even if the price per gram is not the lowest in town. Still it has been a while since I bought over 60 meteorites for about $.50 or less each. And they are cute little things all crusty and tiny. A high percentage of them are oriented. Here is a photograph of a group of the tiny Chelyabinsk meteorites that I got. The weights run form 0.024 gram for the smallest to 0.077 gram for the largest of the group. Many are oriented as can be seen on the picture. This is the group shot of the baby Chelyabinsk meteorites that were a little bigger. Again many are oriented and a couple are actually perfect spheres. I think these might even be fusion crusted individual choundrule because they are not responsive to a magnet. In fact many of these tiny Chelyabinsk have no metal and ignore a rare earth magnet. These are four larger Chelyabinsk individuals that are oriented. The fusion crust on the one is spectacular. I will show it separately next. The double pointed one is very interesting as well. Here is the detail shot of the crusty oriented meteorite from the group of four. I has a wonderful domed face and a bubbly lip and back. It has flow ridges around the side like the several seen in this shot. Here is a chose up shot of one of the Chelyabinsk spheres balanced on a pin head.

Now it was time to head to dinner. We were off to a restaurant for the fanciest burgers of our life. Zen Burger was across town and we found it busy when we got there. A long wait was rewarded with a great meal and good fun with friends and a really nice chocolate shake. Paul went for the slight extra cost of the Kobe beef and enjoyed it. The regular burgers were made from Angus beef and I figured my old taste buds could probably not tell the difference. Mine was a good burger too. Our friends headed off for other activities that night and we headed back to our hotel to do some work and organizing. We needed to get some stuff ready to ship back. I suggested that we watch a movie. My wife and I had gone to see Captain Phillips in the theater just a couple weeks earlier. I had already told Paul how good I thought it was. So we planned to pack and wrap up stuff while watching the movie. Really soon I realized that Paul needed to be able to read the subtitles of the foreign language in the film so I wrapped and he watched. It was a great plan I enjoyed the movie again and he seemed to be impressed by it too.

Sunday was our day to go to the wholesale show and get something nice for my wife and this year for three of our granddaughters that are all turning 13. I had a little trouble finding my favorite jewelry girls at the wholesale show but with some help from Paul we did. I found the amethyst heart earrings for the girls and the pendant for my wife that I hoped would be perfect for a Valentine’s Day gift. Even with the difficulty finding my people we were out of the wholesale show in only about an hour. I needed some silver solder paste and I figured I could get that at the TEP show across the street from the wholesale show.

We zipped over to the Tucson Electric Park show and I found my solder and were starting back to the car. Then I saw Suzanne Morrison and Quinn and Steve Arnold and their booth. So we had a great visit with them. Steve was setting up to sign some autographs so we started heading for the car again. We walked a few yards and heard “these are not the droids you’re looking for” as Geoff Notkin approached us. It seems that this kind of thing happens every year, we just run into the best people over and over. Geoff was on his way to the autograph session so we just talked a moment. We would be seeing him that evening at dinner and we were looking forward to that.

A couple minutes later still before we reached the car my son called and said he was outside Tucson and would pass us in a few minutes. I said we would probably be gone by then but he said he would honk the truck horn as he passed the TEP show. So if anyone of our friends heard a semi truck horn a few minutes after we left that was Tom my son on his way to LA.

Getting done early at the wholesale show gave us the whole afternoon back at the Tucson City Center and we made the rounds again. Got to spend some more great time with ET and Patrick. It was a different kind of day for us. We usually go home on Sunday and have just a few hours in the morning to say goodbye to everyone. This trip we would be here a whole additional day. With most of the work done and the package basically ready to ship we kept our eye out for things that we could use, but some of the pressure was off and we could relax a little. So it was story time with ET and lots of laughing. Another visit to Pani where I had gotten a really beautiful Chelyabinsk a couple day earlier. It was a large stone and perfectly fusion crusted and slightly oriented. It was Paul’s turn to find things in Pani’s room. He always sets a few pieces aside for us too so Paul went through those while I found a few meteorites from an old collection that he had for sale. Several Australian meteorites and older USA meteorites that I had not seen for sale in years. I was really happy that I bought them and here are pictures of just three. This is a slice of Norcateur a 1940 L6 find from Kansas. Here is a close up of Ovid an H6 find from Colorado from 1939.

Coomandook seen here is a nice reddish colored 1939 H6 find from Australia.

My pile of meteorites was pretty small but I was bringing home some really nice material that I would enjoy. That was more important than the weight. It was nearing time to head to dinner. The Hub is a restaurant/creamery with a modern feel. Sunday night was the group of friends that I could only dream of having the chance to spend time with. Geoff Notkin and Elisabeth Egleson, Maria Haas, Anne Black, Molly Phoenix, Mike from Geoff’s staff and Dave Haas all joined Paul and I for a fabulous good time. The gem show is so busy and the dealers who work it have such a hard job for about a month that it is really special when they make the time to get together with friends. I know Paul appreciated seeing them as much as I did.

Monday was our last day at the show but we did not leave until afternoon so we had a few hours to run around and say farewell to everyone. First thing was to send off our shipment of stuff that was too heavy to carry on the plane. We had packed all the fragile meteorites so they would be safe and we took them with us. This was the best gem show for me in the twenty odd years I have gone. It is always a mix of the rocks and the people. This year was a spectacular blend that I will savor through sweet memories for years to come. Thanks to everyone of you who made it special. Meteorite-Times Magazine

Meteorite Market Trends by Michael Blood

Like 3 likes. Sign Up to see what your friends like.

This Month’s Meteorite Market Trends

by Michael Blood

Please Share and Enjoy:

Meteorite Times Magazine

List of California Meteorites by Robert Verish

This updated list is organized into Falls, and Finds f rom dry-lakes, and Finds not f rom dry-lakes.

This is a project that I’ve been working on ever since I discovered that it was hard to find a list of California Meteorites with detailed information that wasn’t out-of-date. The pace of meteorite-recovery in the state of California is rapid and the rate is increasing. Keeping such a list “up-to-date” without losing some details regarding recovery data is becoming more of a challenge.

The original article for this month’s installment of Bob’s Findings was to be “Part 2″ of my previous “San Bernardino Wash (L5)” article. After I had two of my finds from that strewn-field classified, I submitted those meteorites to the Nomenclature Committee (NomCom) in order to get formally-approved names for them. But those names still haven’t been approved. In fact, I may be required to show more convincing data that my L5-chondrite finds are not actually related to the already-named L5-chondrite strewn-field that they were found within, before the NomCom feels comfortable approving my name request. So, until that happens, I will have to save my original article for a later installment. Finding another topic to write about, while sticking to the theme of California meteorites, wasn’t a problem for me. The postponement of that other article has given me an opportunity to present in this article the current state of my progress in my on-going project – that of maintaining a more detailed “List of California Meteorites”.

On the Internet the only site with up-to-date information on all of the formally- recognized meteorite is the Meteoritical Bulletin Database. This website comes with a search engine that can produce a list of the current “California, USA” meteorites. This listing of raw data from that Database is the source of much of the information on my List. I consider this database to be the defining document for all the world’s meteorites.

Credit has to be given to Dr. Petrus Jenniskins for coming up with the idea of compiling a list that separates and highlights meteorite falls, while also listing separately meteorites found on dry-lakes from those found elsewhere. In addition, falls are listed chronologically (starting with the most recent), while the dearth of dry-lake finds are listed alphabetically for the readers convenience. This produces a list that has meteorite falls, which are the most sought for information, appearing at the top of the list, while the numerous finds from dense collection areas (i.e., dry-lakes) appear lower in the list. Dr. Jenniskins compilation of the 4 California falls is very informative and current, but the list of finds is dated as “2009″ and could use an update. So, I forward to him an update for his website. But, just in case his “Meteorites of California” webpage on the NASA-SETI-CAMS website can’t be updated or gets moved, or worse, gets removed, I have reserved a domain for California Meteorites, which I hope will give this list more permanency.

For a link to my newly updated “List of California Meteorites” – click HERE!

Ref erences:

Meteorites with Place = California from the Meteoritical Bulletin: the search results for all meteorites found in “California, USA” – Published in Meteoritical Society – Meteoritical Bulletin, Database.

Meteorites of California the list of formaly-recognized California meteorite falls and finds that is curated by Dr. Petrus Jenniskins, on the NASA-Ames- CAMS website hosted by the Seti Institute.

My previous articles can be found *HERE* For for more information, please contact me by email:

Bolide*chaser Meteorite Times Magazine

Overgrowths by John Kashuba

These chondrules show the effects of multiple heating events coupled with accretion. They are chondrules and mineral grains that have gathered nebular dust, been heated and ended up with porphyritic olivine and pyroxene jackets.

A pair of related barred olivine (BO) chondrules appear blue/yellow in this otherwise porphyritic olivine pyroxene (POP) chondrule. NWA 4870 LL3.7 thin section in cross- polarized light (XPL). Field of view (FOV) is 3mm wide. With the polarizing filters rotated to a different position the BO chondrules go to optical extinction, clearly revealing their position in the larger chondrule. NWA 4870 LL3.7 thin section in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide. A POP chondrule with a BO chondrule in the center. NWA 1930 LL3 thin section in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide. A large, partially disrupted POP chondrule with a BO chondrule occupying much of its center. NWA 1930 LL3 thin section in XPL, FOV = 6.4mm wide. POP chondrule 4mm wide. A POP chondrule with a BO chondrule in the center. NWA 4522 LL3.5 thin section in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide. With the polarizing filters rotated to a different position the BO chondrule goes to optical extinction revealing how much of the overall chondrule it occupies. NWA 4522 LL3.5 thin section in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide. A chondrule consisting of a single large mineral grain surrounded by a thin layer of material that had gathered around the grain and then been heated. The whole is surrounded by opaque dust. NWA 3358 H(L)3 thin section in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide. The same chondrule with the central mineral grain in extinction. NWA 3358 H(L)3 thin section in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide. The chondrule below and to the right of center contains a dusky rusty red relict grain. NWA 3358 H(L)3 thin section in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide. The irregular chondrule in the center of this field contains several dusky relict grains. NWA 3358 H(L)3 thin section in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide. The chondrule just below center contains a BO chondrule and POP material. NWA 4522 LL3.5 thin section in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide. With the filters rotated we can easily see that the BO chondrule occupies about half of the cross section. The chondrule just above center consists largely of two joined BO chondrules of different textures. POP material rounds out the chondrule. NWA 4522 LL3.5 thin section in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide. Finally, another BO / POP chondrule. NWA 1930 LL3 thin section in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide. With the filters rotated we can see that the bulk of the chondrule is composed of three discrete BO chondrules or chondrule fragments. NWA 1930 LL3 thin section in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide. NORM’S TEKTITE TEASERS: Ločenice Moldavites; move over Besednice! By Norm Lehrman (www.tektitesource.com)

This year at the big Tucson show, one of the Czech moldavite suppliers had a frame of stunningly beautiful specimens recently recovered from the Ločenice area, a few kilometers northwest of Besednice (Southern Bohemia, Czech Republic). Ločenice is a long-known locality that has been revisited and systematically searched in the last year or two resulting in some of the finest specimens ever. The pieces are robust, richly colored, and the skin ornamentation is deep and glossy with a smoother character than the fragile, spiny, and somewhat frosted nature of Besednice.

Some specimens exhibit unmistakeable Anda-like ornamentation with parallel grooving reminiscent of rodent chew-marks.

The first beauty we sold is being set into fine jewelry, an application perfectly suited to the new Ločenice material! Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires require a lot of modifications to bring out their glory. But these superb Ločenices are finished works of art. I am in awe. Meteorite Times Magazine

The Atoka Meteorite by Anne Black

Atoka is a small town in the wooded hills of southern Oklahoma, some 100 miles north of Fort Worth and TCU, as the crow or the meteorite flies. According to Wikipedia, it was settled by the Choctaw Indians in the 1830s and eventually named after their chief by a Baptist missionary, and besides a small skirmish between Union and Confederate soldiers just outside of town in February 1864, nothing much happened in Atoka. Until September 17, 1945 when a large meteor streaked across the night sky, and attracted the attention of a dedicated meteorite-hunter. (Unidentified, undated newspaper clipping).

He was not the only one to notice it and Mr. Monnig promptly received a very nicely worded letter answering his question. That a young boy of 13 was able to write this letter is surprising enough but he is also able to describe very precisely the orientation and the angle of the fall. And that letter contains another interesting fact: he mentions that he saw another and even large meteor, a violet one, a few months prior. Did that meteor produce a meteorite? Did anyone ever look for it? If Mr. Mark Twain Carroll is still alive and happens to read this, I would love to give him a small fragment of the Atoka meteorite that he saw such a long time ago. Mr. Monnig did not keep a copy of whatever response he made to Mark Carroll, but by then the meteorite had been found and this discovery was announced along with an even more historical event: the end of World War II, in announced along with an even more historical event: the end of World War II, in the local newspaper.

And by then, Mr. Monnig was already in Oklahoma, investigating the fall and following the various leads. It had been seen by quite a few people, including a farmer in Atoka returning from a hunting trip and even by a lady in Mount Pleasant, Texas, who had attended one his lectures on astronomy. One mass had already been broken but most of the fragments were quickly found.

(Unidentified, undated newspaper clipping)

Some 37 years later Mr. Monnig still remembered very clearly that hunting trip of 1945, and was able to describe it very thoroughly in a letter to Harvey Nininger. He also had his own and rather original theory as to why so few small fragments had been found. Mr. Sanders picking up a piece of the Atoka meteorite. Photo taken by O. Monnig. Meteorite Times Magazine

Ivory Coast Tektites by Anne Black by Alain Carion

Alain Carion and Ivory Coast Tektites. Photo by Mr. F.

The tektites of Ivory Coast are without a doubt the rarest of the tektites in any collections. They have been found while searching for gold, particularly in gold placers, but local shamans and tribal chiefs usually kept them and prized them as amulets with great powers. They are sometimes called “Ivoirites”; they are black, opaque, often round with small, very typical vacuoles. The source crater is probably the Bosumtwi crater, in Ashanti land in south-central Ghana; it is about 10km (6.5 miles) across, filled with a lake and both the crater and the tektites have been dated at about 1 million years old. Among the many different tektites, we can only be sure of the source-crater of two: moldavites and Ivoirites. In the early 1960s, when the Americans were preparing to conquer Space, the prevalent theory was that tektites came from the Moon, and since NASA was already planning to land on the Moon, a number of researchers were sent around the globe with the mission to find those strange objects and all the information available. It is at that time that a few of those experts came to the Museum of Natural History in Paris and re-classified the whole tektite collection there. Others went directly to the local sites to collect specimens; this was the case for Dr. Virgil E. Barnes of the University of Texas, in Austin Texas. On behalf of NASA he went on two trips, first in 1960-61, then in 1963- 64, he brought back many samples from many different sites, except Ivory Coast where he was met with great difficulties and found none.

Ivory Coast was a French colony until August 7, 1960 when it declared its independence. Many French people lived there and some still do, France having always had close relationships with its former colonies in Africa, and Paris is a good place to be to hear about new mineral discoveries in those countries.

Here is how a batch of those rare tektites was discovered and saved by a French collector, Mr. F. on an open-air market in central France thanks to his knowledge of meteorites and tektites. This gentleman, a collector always looking for unusual things, was walking around a small flea market where local people could present on a small patch of ground some old clothes, children toys, and even old packaging from the 70s. He had almost finished his visit when he spotted a few marble-sized pieces of black glass; he picked them up, recognized them as tektites, asked for the price and bought five specimens for just a few euros. Intrigued by the shape, he asked the seller where she had found those objects; much to his surprise, she explained that her grand- mother, Mrs. Madeleine Bouguarel, an avid collector of minerals and rare, odd natural objects, had long lived on a cotton-plantation near Daoukro in western Ivory Coast and she had become intrigued by those black marbles, already quite rare. Eventually it had become a passion and she had encouraged the workers of the plantation to bring those tektites to her. It took her over fifteen years to build up her collection but in 1970, after some ethnic riots, she finally left the plantation taking with her only a small suitcase and her precious black stones. After her death, her grand-daughter had found them in a box in the attic, and she had picked up a few to present on this flea market. Mr. F., who understood the interest and the value of those stones, asked if she had more and where they were located. Only two days later he was able to buy the whole collection, some 120 stones; a true world-class treasure! He promptly contacted me because he had read my books and knew how rare those stones were; in fact he was already one of my customers. First stones received. Photo by Alain Carion

At first he contacted me by phone and offered to send a few pieces to me free of charge, asking only for my expert opinion. A few days later, I did receive a package with a small plastic box containing four small stones but the shapes were not what I expected. I have a very good specimen in my personal collection and I have in the past sold a few small stones acquired from John Saul, an American scientist, one of the very few people who had ever collected any directly on the site. The shape I was expecting was that of a well-rounded marble, those were not, and I declined the offer.

I kept that box on a corner of my desk for nearly a year before I finally decided to call him again and to go look at the whole batch. But then, when I saw the complete collection, all doubts were gone and I understood the value of that discovery. I bought the whole lot and Mr. F. accepted to put me in contact with the original seller, the grand-daughter of Madeleine Bouguarel, I wanted to know more about the original owner of this exceptional collection, and I even obtained a picture of that lady. But among the many emails I exchanged with the grand-daughter there is one that surprised me, it read exactly: “Me, I know that she had fields of cotton at Daoukro, and that at the time she had sent a few stones to NASA”. This could only have been known by a few people at that time; did Madeleine Bouguarel meet or hear of those American scientists who were looking for unusual stones? Did she have the wrong address? Was the package lost or did a secretary think that it was a joke? We will never know.

Mrs. Madeleine Bouguarel in 1970. Photo supplied by her grand-daughter.

I presented this collection in exclusivity during the Show of Tucson in February 2014. Each tektite was sold with a certificate of authenticity, with a picture, weight and dimensions of the individual stone. I personally guarantee each of these tektites. Also Pierre Rochette of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Aix-Marseille did a magnetic susceptibility study on about forty of these Ivory Coast tektites. The study proved that the lot is homogeneous with an average value clearly different from the magnetic susceptibility of an Australite from my Gallery and from the values published in the scientific literature. All this because you can actually find tektites in Ivory Coast but it is impossible even for an expert mineralogist to tell if they have been found locally or imported from China or Vietnam, as the local ones are still extremely rare. So even with the addition of these 120 stones, real tektites from Ivory Coast are still the rarest of all tektites. Meteorite Times Magazine

Tucson 2014 Meteorite Dealers Pictured on MPOD by Editor

Our Meteorite of the Month is kindly provided by Tucson Meteorites who hosts The Meteorite Picture of the Day.

A special thank you to Paul at Tucson Meteorites for posting dealer pictures daily during the Tucson Show. Scrolling through them now brings back so many great memories from the show.

If you’d like more information about these dealers and to see more pictures from their rooms please visit February 2014 at The Meteorite Picture of the Day. Meteorite Times Magazine

Meteorite-Times Sponsors by Editor

Please support Meteorite-Times by visiting our sponsors websites. Click the bottom of the banners to open their website in a new tab / window.

catchafallingstar.com Nakhla Dog Meteorites

Michael Blood Meteorites The Meteorite Exchange

Impactika Rocks From Heaven

Aerolite Meteorites Big Kahuna Meteorites

Sikhote-Alin Meteorites Michael Farmer Schoolers Nevada Meteorites

Advertise Here

Once a few decades ago this opening was a framed window in the wall of H. H. Nininger's Home and Museum building. From this window he must have many times pondered the mysteries of Meteor Crater seen in the distance.