PAGE 12 - April 22, 2009
The Newscaster/Nature Coast News
Meteorites  - Continued from page 8
Most meteorites disintegrate when entering the earth's surface, but an estimated 500
Sat.April 25
This
meteorites, ranging from the size of a marble to a basketball or larger, reach the earth's surface
each year, although only about 5 or 6 are typically recovered and made known to scientists.
Sun. April 26
Some meteorites are large enough to creat impact craters and have been known to cause
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damage to property, people and livestock.
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While in space, the meteorite is called a meteoroid, but when it enters the earth's atmosphere,
a fireball forms due to impact pressure, causing the meteorite to heat up and emit light, and it's
Swap Meet bring all your
then called a meteor or shooting star. Once a meteorite is recovered, it's called a find, unless it
4x4 related parts and
is observed either entering the atmosphere or impacting the earth, then it's called a fall. Upon
mud bogging gear!!
impact with the earth, most are warm to the touch, although some have been reported as very
hot and some have been known to create frost upon impact.
Over 1000 falls have been witnessed and over 31,000 meteorite finds are well docu-
Designated ATV area open,
mented. There are three main, broad categories, (1) stony meteorites that are rocks, mainly
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All Size
composed of silicate minerals; (2) iron meteorites (similar to type M asteroids) that are largely
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composed of metallic iron-nickel (the most likely meteorite to survive when it enters the earth's
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Trucks!
atmosphere and/or impacts the earth and the most likely to cause an impact crater) and (3)
stony-iron meteorites (similar to type S asteroids) which contain large amounts of both metal-
4 wheel
lic and rocky material. Chondrite is the most often found stony-iron meteorite and is similar to
Horse Hole
the mantles and crusts of the terrestrial planets. Meteorites are further divided into groups
ATVs OK
according to their structure, chemical and isotopic composition and mineralogy. Carbon-
Mud Bog
aceous chondrite (similar to type C asteroids) has a similar composition to the Sun. Achon-
Designated
drites (the type meteorite believed to have originated on the Moon and Mars) are similar to
terrestrial basalts.
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Meteorites are always named for the place where they were found, usually the near-
at the Gate
Area
est town or geographic feature. If many meteorites are found in one place, the name is usually
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followed by a number or letter. Some of the more famous ones even have nicknames, such as
8 Miles N. of Inglis on US-19
the Hodges Meteorite, the first documented case of a meteorite hitting a person, Ann Hodges,
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while she was sitting in her Sylacauga, Alabama living room on Nov. 30, 1954; a stone chon-
drite crashed through her roof, bounced off a radio and hit her on the head, badly bruising her.
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The first meteorite fall which was recorded on an automated camera and recovered
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following the calculation of the impact point was the Pribram Meteorite, which fell in Czecho-
Profanity - Fighting
slovakia (now the Czech Republic) in 1959.
Harvey H. Nininger discovered that meteorites are much more common on the Earth
Glass Bottles - Pets
than was previously thought. He traveled the Great Plains during the late 1920s through the
1950s, educating locals on recognizing meteorites if they should see them while working on
EMT & law enforcement on premises
their land, and what to do if they found one. His efforts resulted in the discovery of over 200
new meteorites, mostly stony types. After several meteorites were discovered in 1967, a public
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website: www.mudup.com
awareness campaign resulted in about 100 meteorites being discovered during the next few
Children under 15 must be accompanied by an adult
email: info@mudup.com
years. Between 1912 and 1964, a few meteorites were found by field parties in Antarctica, and
in 1969, the 10th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition found 9 meteorites on a blue ice field
near the Yamato Mountains. After a dozen others were found in the same location in 1973, a
Japanese expedition was launched in 1974 to search for meteorites, and the team found almost
Dine-In
700. Soon, the United States began a program, ANSMET, to search for meteorites in the
Antartic. Other teams searching for meteorites in the Antartic include European teams,
EUROMET, started in the late 1980s; an Italian team, Italian Programma Nazionale di Ricerche
in Antartide; a Chinese team, Antarctic Scientific Exploration of China, started in 2000; and a
Korean program, KOREAME, launched in 2007.
These expeditions have produced over 23,000 classified meteorite specimens since
1974, and thousands more that have not yet been classified. Since 1971, many meteorites have
been found in the Nullarbor region of Western and South Australia. In 1986-1987, a German
team installing oil prospecting seismic stations discovered about 65 meteorites in the Libyan
desert near Dirj, and in 1989, a desert enthusiast recovered about 100 meteorites from several
locations in Libya and Algeria; a short time later, he and his associates found about 400
additional meteorites. Meteorite markets soon came into existance, distributing many thou-
sands of meteorites that were mostly found in Morocco in the Sahara desert; little information
is known about these "Northwest Africa" meteorites. Several regions in Oman have contrib-
uted over 2000 meteorites, but collecting meteorites from this region is now prohibited by
national law. More recent meteorite finds include Barstow, California and the Mojave, Sonoran,
Great Basin, and Chihuahuan Deserts.
About 120 impact craters have left their mark on earth. The largest known crater is the
Vredefort Crater in South Africa, which has a diameter of 300 km from an estimated 10 km wide
meteorite. The Chicxulub Crater off the coast of Yucatán, which is 180 km in diameter, is
Joe Dawson, Homosassa displays two pieces from his extensive meteorite collection which is currently
thought to be the source of the K-T Boundary, which marks the end of the Mesozoic Era and
on display at Jewels & Diamonds fine jewelry store on U.S. 19 in Homosassa. The collection consists
the existence of dinosaurs, about 65 million years ago.
of several hundred pieces from all over the world. Photo by Debbie Russell
Sea Forest Gifts
Todd Sumlin
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