Meteorite Times MagazineContentsby Editor

Featured Articles

Accretion Desk by Martin HorejsiJim’s Fragments by Jim TobinMeteorite Market Trends by Michael BloodBob’s Findings by Robert VerishMicro Visions by John KashubaNorm’s Tektite Teasers by Norm LehrmanMr. Monning’s Collection by Anne BlackIMCA Insights by The IMCA TeamMeteorite of the Month by EditorTektite of the Month by Editor

Terms Of Use

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

The Meteorite Exchange, Inc. shall not be held liable for anymisinformation by any author, dealer and or seller. In no event will TheMeteorite Exchange, Inc. be liable for any damages, including any lossof profits, lost savings, or any other commercial damage, including butnot limited to special, consequential, or other damages arising out ofthis service.

© Copyright 2002–2014 The Meteorite Exchange, Inc. All rightsreserved.

No reproduction of copyrighted material is allowed by any meanswithout prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Meteorite Times MagazineSoko-Banja: LL4 Artillery from the Skyby Mart in Horejsi

The fall of the Soko-Banja, Serbia (Yugoslavia)chondrite

Like cement f rom the heavens, the Soko-Banja chondrite crashed into historyback in 1877.

At approximately two in the af ternoon on October 13, 1877, a thunderousnoise described by witnesses as “Bat teries of cannon f iring briskly” was heard,followed by a “violent concussion of air.” Then rocks were st rewn around theregion.

Other witnesses further away described the event as “two explosions likesalvoes of art illery accompanied by a brilliant display of light .” The light wasdescribed as like that which “at tends the burst ing 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 thisbeauty sprout ing f rom bow of this space ship.

Another descript ion of the fall described the noise as last ing “for some t ime,and then the sound resembled the f iring of musket ry. The air appeared to beshaken.”

Following the explosive sound, stones fell to earth in an area described as “amile and a half in length and a half a mile in breadth.” In other words, a classicellipsoid st rewn f ield.

One stone, weighing 10 okas (~22.5 Aust rian pounds), landed in f ront of ahouse burying it self “deep in the earth.” Another stone, this one weighing 30okas landed at Scherbanowaz, near Rtanj Berg. It s mass of almost 70 Aust rianpounds 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 ofa sack of f lour that st ruck a rocky surface and “was dashed to f ragments.”

Addit ional descript ions of part icular stones included one of 23 okas that fell inthe village of Scherbanowaz, and “penet rated the soil to a depth of four feet .”

Another stone of 15 okas fell “near the vineyard at Soko-Banja, and reached adepth of three feet .”

Interest ing dark inclusions abound in Soko-Banja. The cont rast between themat rix and the inclusions was noted early in the published descript ions of theseunusual stones f rom the sky.

One piece of note is a f ragment described as 2 okas in weight and “fell on apear t ree, and then descended to the ground. A man under the t ree took it inhis hand, and received the impression that the mass was st ill warm.”

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

The interior of the meteorite was described as consist ing of “spherules ofvarious sizes, some brown, some yellow, cemented together by and ash-greymaterial, and presents the appearance of a t rachyt ic lava.”

The James DuPont Meteorite Collect ion let loose of this specimen back in April of1995 where it entered the collect ion of Jim Schwade. A decade later it moved intomy collect ion.

As a historical witnessed fall, Soko-Banja is a classic case doing more toconf irm the understanding about meteorites at the t ime rather than addingnew informat ion. However, 137 years later, Soko-Banja is an important placeholder in many inst itut ions due to is relat ively rare class of LL4, and by thecollect ion of diverse but converging perspect ives about it s fall.

Unt il next t ime…

Meteorite Times MagazineThe 2014 Tucson Gem and Mineral Show Reportby James Tobin

This is a large oriented Chelyabinsk meteorite.

Well another Tucson Gem and Mineral Show has come and gone. And I will notmake you wait unt il t he end for what I thought about this one. I think we didmore good work as a business and had more fun and spent more great t imewith f riends then ever before.

I had a lit t le nervousness about the t rip because we were leaving for Tucson acouple days later than we usually do. But , those feeling proved to be

unfounded as there was material for us to buy and we found almosteverything that we had wanted to get . As for me I went without a list reallyexcept I wanted some t iny Chelyabinsk baby meteorites. There will be a lot ofChelyabinsk pictures in this art icle I made sure to get some since no oneknows how much there will be in the future.

Here are a couple pictures of t iny oriented Chelyabinsk meteorites balanced onthe head of a pin.

Our plane landed at about 3 pm Tucson t ime. Which gave us enough t ime torun to our hotel and check in af ter get t ing the rental car and head back downto the Tucson City Center Hotel and spend a lit t le t ime before going the fewblocks to El Charro Restaurant for the yearly IMCA dinner. I found a few babyChelyabinsk right of f that were nice. I would later f ind some even smallerChelyabinsk and I would buy about 60 of those. I brought back the lowestweight of meteorites I have in many years but I am sure I brought back thehighest number of individual stones ever.

New acquisit ions for my collect ion need to have a higher entertainment factorthan they did in the past . And I love nothing more than put t ing t iny stonesunder the digital microscope and studying them in closeup detail. Or taking abig chunk of t ime to photograph them with my macro setup. Guess I gothooked on t iny meteorites af ter Holbrook two years ago.

We had a great t ime at the IMCA dinner. We ate with Norm and CookieLehrman and Bob and Moni Verish were just a chair away. We got to see agood number of other f riends. The food was as always very good but it really

is the camaraderie that makes this event so great . I caught up on familyact ivit ies and the year’s gardening with Norm and Cookie. I had planted avegetable garden and built a greenhouse since last year and they grow a lotof their own vegetables too.

Bob was as always excited about the most recent meteorites he hadrecovered. He and Moni were both pret t y thrilled with the pictures Paul and Ihave got ten of the night sky. They have been with us many t imes when wehad scopes and enjoyed hours of stargazing with us af ter hunt ing meteoritesall day. It started to rain about 9 pm and we were all in the pat io area so Pauland I called it a night ; said our goodbyes and headed to the hotel. The nextday would begin our work.

Friday morning came slowly for me af ter a long night of tossing and turningwith lit t le sleep. We had our t radit ional breakfast at the Denny’s near the hoteland headed to our f irst stop; a visit with Mike Miller at the Ramada. As alwayshis room sparkled with beaut ifully etched irons. We chat ted a while and gotslices of a few meteorites. We made our way around the corner to BlaineReed’s room. As always he was sit t ing on the bed talking to a couplecustomers. We looked around chat ted with him and I found a piece of Saratovthat he had. I have a nice slice of Saratov already but I have been looking for amore chunky piece for a while that I can ext ract the chondrules f rom. If youhandle Saratov at all it will start to shed chondrules. But I wanted to not getchondrules that were cut on one edge. That is what I would get too many ofwith the piece I already had. The piece Blaine had was much thicker and wouldgive me masses of chondrules only a f ract ion of which would be nicked by adiamond blade. By the t ime I got home the piece already had dozens ofchondrules in the plast ic baggie ready to pick out with tweezers.

This is the chunky slice of Saratov a very f riable L4 chondrite and witnessed fallf rom September 6, 1918. Below is a shot of some of the chondrules had havebeen ext racted 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 hisroom. But , right then we needed to move along. We knew we had a full day ofwork ahead and that we needed to be down the road.

We always spend two or three hours with Erich and Silvia whom we haveknown for many years. So as to not shorten our t ime with them we hit the areabehind the Days Inn and then made our way back to their hotel for the rest ofthe af ternoon. There was another dealer there also that we always see.Behind the Day’s Inn I usually f ind some meteorites that I can not resist buying.This year was no dif ferent . I got just a single stone but it was quite f resh andabout 70% complete. Nothing really special but it called out to me. While Paulbrief ly took care of a lit t le business he had I walked quickly down to CosmicCut lery’s room and said hi to Bud Eisler. Pablo was there with the wonderfulitems that Lisa Marie and he had brought . But , t ime was not on my side so Ihad 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 meteoritesfor my collect ion that I could not resist . Not that it takes a lot of ef fort I don’tput up much of a st ruggle. I got a nice slice of an anomalous mesosiderite,f ive oriented unclassif ied NWA stones that were quite cute, a piece of a NWApallasite that was heavily weathered but would make for a nice photograph ina future book or art icle. I found a few pieces of Jbilet Winselwan CM2 and gotthose. We got a few nice things for the business and while Paul set t led up

there with them I said goodbye and headed to our other supplier to beginget t ing together the irons we get every year. I had picked out about half thematerial by the t ime Paul caught up with me and we f igure doing it this waysaved us a couple hours. He helped f inish the select ing and we got done witht ime enough to head back to TCC for the rest of the af ternoon. It wasbirthday bash evening and we had decided to eat before going since it is justtoo hard to eat there. We needed to return to our hotel and we had no plansto eat with f riends that night . Af ter dinner we made our way back to town andthe Birthday Bash party for Geof f Notkin and Steve Arnold, which alwaysincludes the present ing of the year’s Harvey Awards. A great group was thereagain. We were able to f inally hook up with Rob Wesel and Jason Phillips. Ithad been two years since we had seen them. Jason had got ten caught in theterrible snow storm that hit Dallas and had not been able to arrive on t ime. Wewere glad that he made it .

It was a smaller crowd I think as I was able to actually get the bar maid’sat tent ion to order Paul and I some Diet Cokes. Richard Garcia was there andwe got to chat with him about ast rophotography and California stuf f . We needto do some hunt ing and photograph together with him. Bill and Mike Jensenwere there and we had fun talking with them. Geof f and Steve began theirprogram for the evening and we all gathered toward the back of the room tohear them. They presented the Harveys and many deserving individuals wererecognized none more worthy than Adam Bates who received the award forbeing a really good new guy in the community. We had got ten to meet him lastyear and were looking forward to spending some t ime the next day looking athis wonderful material. It had been a long day and another couple lay ahead ofus st ill so we did call it an evening a lit t le early.

Af ter 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 seeeveryone that was there. We had a lit t le list for the business and I had notbeen doing very much buying for myself so this was going to be a chance forme as well. We had our breakfast again and since we never have lunch at theshow it s our important meal. We had plans for dinner Saturday night withf riends. We always get some pieces of Libyan Desert Glass at the show andwe found a nice batch of that . Like everyone else we were looking forChelyabinsk and we found it for a really f ine price in every t ype you couldwant . We got some impact melt nodules, some individuals that were perfectand some that were broken on one spot to show of f the insides. I saw as wewere going through the material some pieces that were in the broken bin andwere really slickensides pieces not broken, so I picked up those.

I joked with Edwin Thompson as we stopped by his room that we would beback 50 t imes during the show so as his room would f ill up we would move onwith a statement like just 48 more t ime then 46 more t imes. Course we did notreally visit his room 50 t imes but we did get to spend some great t ime withhim and Pat rick this year. We got to sample his world famous guacamole andchips. Larry Sloan was there many of the visit s and as always it was great tospeak with him. He is one of the f ine gent lemen of our community. But , thenthere are so many f ine 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 MollyPhoenix. I found a few meteorites there this year. Of the several I found Iwould have to say that the Deelfontein, the Orange River, and the Kyushupieces were the nicest . I had been looking for a couple of them for a while. Sogradually I was f inding a few items for my collect ion at the show.

El Sampal is a very at t ract ive medium octahedrite f rom Argent ina and I found anice slice of it in Anne’s room this year.

We moved next door to Aerolite Meteorites to see Geof f Notkin and his everef f icient and f riendly staf f . Geof f greeted us and signed a couple of books forus and we chat ted for a moment but he was busy. We were able to arrange adinner 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 workto do so we headed onward.

We always stop and see Pieter Heydelaar and Debra Morrisset te at GlobalT reasures and f ind a few things to buy. This year we found a few individualmeteorites and a nice slice of something we have never of fered before. Wechat ted a long t ime with them unt il t hey also got busy.

Down the same hall brought us to Bruno and Carine’s room with theirwonderful material. They had a kind of tough year but things worked out OKand they were in good spirit s at the show. They have developed a feel forwhat works for us and always have a few meteorites we buy. It is fun talking tothem they bring great stories and beaut iful meteorites.

We gradually made our way through the hotel hit t ing most of the meteoritedealers. We were going to be back on Monday for several hours and wouldf inish seeing a few then. We did see Adam Bates on Saturday. His room is adelight to visit . Such well prepared meteorites and nearly all are something

really interest ing. We had a great visit and got to know him a lit t le bet ter.

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

The af ternoon had crept up on us and I suddenly realized that I had not spentany money the whole day. So it was a fast t rip over to one dealer we had notvisited yet to see what he had. He was one of the Russian dealers and wereally needed to compare prices on Chelyabinsk anyway. Well, he had a boxwith some of the cutest t iny Chelyabinsk you would ever want to see. I had noproblem f inding a few dozen that I could not resist . Of course they did notweigh very much so you get a lot of bang for a buck with t iny meteorites evenif the price per gram is not the lowest in town. St ill it has been a while since Ibought over 60 meteorites for about $.50 or less each. And they are cute lit t lethings all crusty and t iny. A high percentage of them are oriented.

Here is a photograph of a group of the t iny Chelyabinsk meteorites that I got . Theweights run form 0.024 gram for the smallest to 0.077 gram for the largest of thegroup. Many are oriented as can be seen on the picture.

This is the group shot of the baby Chelyabinsk meteorites that were a lit t lebigger. Again many are oriented and a couple are actually perfect spheres. Ithink these might even be fusion crusted individual choundrule because theyare not responsive to a magnet . In fact many of these t iny Chelyabinsk haveno metal and ignore a rare earth magnet .

These are four larger Chelyabinsk individuals that are oriented. The fusion cruston the one is spectacular. I will show it separately next . The double pointed one isvery interest ing as well.

Here is the detail shot of the crusty oriented meteorite f rom the group of four. Ihas a wonderful domed face and a bubbly lip and back. It has f low ridges aroundthe side like the several seen in this shot .

Here is a chose up shot of one of the Chelyabinsk spheres balanced on a pinhead.

Now it was t ime to head to dinner. We were of f to a restaurant for thefanciest burgers of our lif e. Zen Burger was across town and we found it busywhen we got there. A long wait was rewarded with a great meal and good funwith f riends and a really nice chocolate shake. Paul went for the slight ext racost of the Kobe beef and enjoyed it . The regular burgers were made f romAngus beef and I f igured my old taste buds could probably not tell thedif ference. Mine was a good burger too. Our f riends headed of f for otheract ivit ies that night and we headed back to our hotel to do some work andorganizing. We needed to get some stuf f ready to ship back. I suggested thatwe watch a movie. My wife and I had gone to see Captain Phillips in thetheater just a couple weeks earlier. I had already told Paul how good I thoughtit was. So we planned to pack and wrap up stuf f while watching the movie.

Really soon I realized that Paul needed to be able to read the subt it les of theforeign language in the f ilm so I wrapped and he watched. It was a great plan Ienjoyed 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 formy wife and this year for three of our granddaughters that are all turning 13. Ihad a lit t le t rouble f inding my favorite jewelry girls at the wholesale show butwith some help f rom Paul we did. I found the amethyst heart earrings for thegirls and the pendant for my wife that I hoped would be perfect for aValent ine’s Day gif t . Even with the dif f icult y f inding my people we were out ofthe wholesale show in only about an hour. I needed some silver solder pasteand I f igured I could get that at the TEP show across the st reet f rom thewholesale show.

We zipped over to the Tucson Elect ric Park show and I found my solder andwere start ing back to the car. Then I saw Suzanne Morrison and Quinn andSteve Arnold and their booth. So we had a great visit with them. Steve wasset t ing 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 Geof f Notkin approached us. It seems that this kind of thing happens everyyear, we just run into the best people over and over. Geof f was on his way tothe autograph session so we just talked a moment . We would be seeing himthat evening at dinner and we were looking forward to that .

A couple minutes later st ill before we reached the car my son called and saidhe was outside Tucson and would pass us in a few minutes. I said we wouldprobably be gone by then but he said he would honk the t ruck horn as hepassed the TEP show. So if anyone of our f riends heard a semi t ruck horn afew minutes af ter we lef t that was Tom my son on his way to LA.

Get t ing done early at the wholesale show gave us the whole af ternoon backat the Tucson City Center and we made the rounds again. Got to spend somemore great t ime with ET and Pat rick. It was a dif ferent kind of day for us. Weusually go home on Sunday and have just a few hours in the morning to saygoodbye to everyone. This t rip we would be here a whole addit ional day. Withmost of the work done and the package basically ready to ship we kept oureye out for things that we could use, but some of the pressure was of f andwe could relax a lit t le. So it was story t ime with ET and lots of laughing.Another visit to Pani where I had got ten a really beaut iful Chelyabinsk a coupleday earlier. It was a large stone and perfect ly fusion crusted and slight lyoriented. It was Paul’s turn to f ind things in Pani’s room. He always sets a fewpieces aside for us too so Paul went through those while I found a fewmeteorites f rom an old collect ion that he had for sale. Several Aust ralianmeteorites and older USA meteorites that I had not seen for sale in years. Iwas really happy that I bought them and here are pictures of just three.

This is a slice of Norcateur a 1940 L6 f ind f rom Kansas.

Here is a close up of Ovid an H6 f ind f rom Colorado f rom 1939.

Coomandook seen here is a nice reddish colored 1939 H6 f ind f rom Aust ralia.

My pile of meteorites was pret t y small but I was bringing home some reallynice material that I would enjoy. That was more important than the weight . Itwas nearing t ime to head to dinner. The Hub is a restaurant /creamery with amodern feel. Sunday night was the group of f riends that I could only dream ofhaving the chance to spend t ime with. Geof f Notkin and Elisabeth Egleson,Maria Haas, Anne Black, Molly Phoenix, Mike f rom Geof f ’s staf f and DaveHaas all joined Paul and I for a fabulous good t ime. The gem show is so busyand the dealers who work it have such a hard job for about a month that it isreally special when they make the t ime to get together with f riends. I knowPaul appreciated seeing them as much as I did.

Monday was our last day at the show but we did not leave unt il af ternoon sowe had a few hours to run around and say farewell to everyone. First thingwas to send of f our shipment of stuf f that was too heavy to carry on theplane. We had packed all the f ragile meteorites so they would be safe and wetook them with us. This was the best gem show for me in the twenty oddyears I have gone. It is always a mix of the rocks and the people. This yearwas a spectacular blend that I will savor through sweet memories for years tocome. Thanks to everyone of you who made it special.

Meteorite-Times MagazineMeteorite Market Trendsby Michael Blood

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

This Month’sMeteorite Market Trends

by Michael Blood

Please Share and Enjoy:

Meteorite Times MagazineList of California Meteoritesby Robert Verish

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

This is a project that I’ve been working on ever since I discovered that it washard to f ind a list of California Meteorites with detailed informat ion thatwasn’t out -of -date. The pace of meteorite-recovery in the state of Californiais rapid and the rate is increasing. Keeping such a list “up-to-date” withoutlosing some details regarding recovery data is becoming more of a challenge.

The original art icle for this month’s installment of Bob’s Findings was to be“Part 2″ of my previous “San Bernardino Wash (L5)” art icle. Af ter I had two ofmy f inds f rom that st rewn-f ield classif ied, I submit ted those meteorites to theNomenclature Commit tee (NomCom) in order to get formally-approvednames for them. But those names st ill haven’t been approved. In fact , I maybe required to show more convincing data that my L5-chondrite f inds are notactually related to the already-named L5-chondrite st rewn-f ield that theywere found within, before the NomCom feels comfortable approving my namerequest . So, unt il t hat happens, I will have to save my original art icle for a laterinstallment .

Finding another topic to write about , while st icking to the theme of Californiameteorites, wasn’t a problem for me. The postponement of that other art iclehas given me an opportunit y to present in this art icle the current state of myprogress in my on-going project – that of maintaining a more detailed “List ofCalifornia Meteorites”.

On the Internet the only site with up-to-date informat ion on all of the formally-recognized meteorite is the Meteorit ical Bullet in Database. This websitecomes with a search engine that can produce a list of the current “California,USA” meteorites. This list ing of raw data f rom that Database is the source ofmuch of the informat ion on my List . I consider this database to be the def iningdocument for all the world’s meteorites.

Credit has to be given to Dr. Pet rus Jenniskins for coming up with the idea ofcompiling a list that separates and highlights meteorite falls, while also list ingseparately meteorites found on dry-lakes f rom those found elsewhere. Inaddit ion, falls are listed chronologically (start ing with the most recent ), whilethe dearth of dry-lake f inds are listed alphabet ically for the readersconvenience. This produces a list that has meteorite falls, which are the mostsought for informat ion, appearing at the top of the list , while the numerousf inds f rom dense collect ion areas (i.e., dry-lakes) appear lower in the list . Dr.Jenniskins compilat ion of the 4 California falls is very informat ive and current ,but the list of f inds is dated as “2009″ and could use an update. So, I forwardto 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!

References:

Meteorites with Place = California f rom the Meteorit ical Bullet in: the searchresult s for all meteorites found in “California, USA” – Published in Meteorit icalSociety – Meteorit ical Bullet in, Database.

Meteorites of California the list of formaly-recognized California meteoritefalls and f inds that is curated by Dr. Pet rus Jenniskins, on the NASA-Ames-CAMS website hosted by the Set i Inst itute.

My previous art icles can be found *HERE*

For for more information, please contact me by email:

Bolide*chaser

Meteorite Times MagazineOvergrowthsby John Kashuba

These chondrules show the ef fects of mult iple heat ing events coupled withaccret ion. They are chondrules and mineral grains that have gathered nebulardust , been heated and ended up with porphyrit ic olivine and pyroxene jackets.

A pair of related barred olivine (BO) chondrules appear blue/yellow in this otherwiseporphyrit ic olivine pyroxene (POP) chondrule. NWA 4870 LL3.7 thin sect ion in cross-polarized light (XPL). Field of view (FOV) is 3mm wide.

With the polarizing f ilt ers rotated to a dif ferent posit ion the BO chondrules go toopt ical ext inct ion, clearly revealing their posit ion in the larger chondrule. NWA 4870LL3.7 thin sect ion in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide.

A POP chondrule with a BO chondrule in the center. NWA 1930 LL3 thin sect ion in XPL,FOV = 3mm wide.

A large, part ially disrupted POP chondrule with a BO chondrule occupying much of it scenter. NWA 1930 LL3 thin sect ion in XPL, FOV = 6.4mm wide. POP chondrule 4mmwide.

A POP chondrule with a BO chondrule in the center. NWA 4522 LL3.5 thin sect ion inXPL, FOV = 3mm wide.

With the polarizing f ilt ers rotated to a dif ferent posit ion the BO chondrule goes toopt ical ext inct ion revealing how much of the overall chondrule it occupies. NWA 4522LL3.5 thin sect ion in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide.

A chondrule consist ing of a single large mineral grain surrounded by a thin layer ofmaterial that had gathered around the grain and then been heated. The whole issurrounded by opaque dust . NWA 3358 H(L)3 thin sect ion in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide.

The same chondrule with the cent ral mineral grain in ext inct ion. NWA 3358 H(L)3 thinsect ion 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 sect ion in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide.

The irregular chondrule in the center of this f ield contains several dusky relict grains.NWA 3358 H(L)3 thin sect ion in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide.

The chondrule just below center contains a BO chondrule and POP material. NWA 4522LL3.5 thin sect ion in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide.

With the f ilt ers rotated we can easily see that the BO chondrule occupies about halfof the cross sect ion. The chondrule just above center consists largely of two joinedBO chondrules of dif ferent textures. POP material rounds out the chondrule. NWA4522 LL3.5 thin sect ion in XPL, FOV = 3mm wide.

Finally, another BO / POP chondrule. NWA 1930 LL3 thin sect ion in XPL, FOV = 3mmwide.

With the f ilt ers rotated we can see that the bulk of the chondrule is composed ofthree discrete BO chondrules or chondrule f ragments. NWA 1930 LL3 thin sect ion inXPL, 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 MagazineThe Atoka Meteoriteby Anne Black

Atoka is a small town in the wooded hills of southern Oklahoma, some 100miles north of Fort Worth and TCU, as the crow or the meteorite f lies.According to Wikipedia, it was set t led by the Choctaw Indians in the 1830s andeventually named af ter their chief by a Bapt ist missionary, and besides asmall skirmish between Union and Confederate soldiers just outside of town inFebruary 1864, nothing much happened in Atoka. Unt il September 17, 1945when a large meteor st reaked across the night sky, and at t racted theat tent ion of a dedicated meteorite-hunter.

(Unident if ied, undated newspaper clipping).

He was not the only one to not ice it and Mr. Monnig prompt ly received a verynicely worded let ter answering his quest ion. That a young boy of 13 was ableto write this let ter is surprising enough but he is also able to describe veryprecisely the orientat ion and the angle of the fall. And that let ter containsanother interest ing fact : he ment ions that he saw another and even largemeteor, a violet one, a few months prior. Did that meteor produce ameteorite? Did anyone ever look for it? If Mr. Mark Twain Carroll is st ill aliveand happens to read this, I would love to give him a small f ragment of theAtoka meteorite that he saw such a long t ime ago.

Mr. Monnig did not keep a copy of whatever response he made to MarkCarroll, but by then the meteorite had been found and this discovery wasannounced 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, inthe local newspaper.

And by then, Mr. Monnig was already in Oklahoma, invest igat ing the fall and

following the various leads. It had been seen by quite a few people, including afarmer in Atoka returning f rom a hunt ing t rip and even by a lady in MountPleasant , Texas, who had at tended one his lectures on ast ronomy. One masshad already been broken but most of the f ragments were quickly found.

(Unident if ied, undated newspaper clipping)

Some 37 years later Mr. Monnig st ill remembered very clearly that hunt ing t ripof 1945, and was able to describe it very thoroughly in a let ter to HarveyNininger. He also had his own and rather original theory as to why so few smallf ragments had been found.

Mr. Sanders picking up a piece of the Atoka meteorite. Photo taken by O. Monnig.

Meteorite Times MagazineIvory Coast Tektitesby Anne Black

by Alain Carion

Alain Carion and Ivory Coast Tekt ites. Photo by Mr. F.

The tekt ites of Ivory Coast are without a doubt the rarest of the tekt ites inany collect ions. They have been found while searching for gold, part icularly ingold placers, but local shamans and t ribal chiefs usually kept them and prizedthem as amulets with great powers. They are somet imes called “Ivoirites”;they are black, opaque, of ten round with small, very t ypical vacuoles. Thesource crater is probably the Bosumtwi crater, in Ashant i land in south-cent ralGhana; it is about 10km (6.5 miles) across, f illed with a lake and both the craterand the tekt ites have been dated at about 1 million years old. Among themany dif ferent tekt ites, 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, theprevalent theory was that tekt ites came f rom the Moon, and since NASA wasalready planning to land on the Moon, a number of researchers were sentaround the globe with the mission to f ind those st range objects and all theinformat ion available. It is at that t ime that a few of those experts came tothe Museum of Natural History in Paris and re-classif ied the whole tekt itecollect ion there. Others went direct ly to the local sites to collect specimens;this was the case for Dr. Virgil E. Barnes of the Universit y of Texas, in Aust inTexas. On behalf of NASA he went on two t rips, f irst in 1960-61, then in 1963-64, he brought back many samples f rom many dif ferent sites, except IvoryCoast where he was met with great dif f icult ies and found none.

Ivory Coast was a French colony unt il August 7, 1960 when it declared it sindependence. Many French people lived there and some st ill do, Francehaving always had close relat ionships with it s former colonies in Af rica, andParis is a good place to be to hear about new mineral discoveries in thosecount ries.

Here is how a batch of those rare tekt ites was discovered and saved by aFrench collector, Mr. F. on an open-air market in cent ral France thanks to hisknowledge of meteorites and tekt ites. This gent leman, a collector alwayslooking for unusual things, was walking around a small f lea market where localpeople could present on a small patch of ground some old clothes, childrentoys, and even old packaging f rom the 70s. He had almost f inished his visitwhen he spot ted a few marble-sized pieces of black glass; he picked them up,recognized them as tekt ites, asked for the price and bought f ive specimensfor just a few euros. Int rigued by the shape, he asked the seller where she hadfound those objects; much to his surprise, she explained that her grand-mother, Mrs. Madeleine Bouguarel, an avid collector of minerals and rare, oddnatural objects, had long lived on a cot ton-plantat ion near Daoukro in westernIvory Coast and she had become int rigued by those black marbles, alreadyquite rare. Eventually it had become a passion and she had encouraged theworkers of the plantat ion to bring those tekt ites to her. It took her over f if t eenyears to build up her collect ion but in 1970, af ter some ethnic riots, she f inallylef t the plantat ion taking with her only a small suit case and her precious blackstones. Af ter her death, her grand-daughter had found them in a box in theat t ic, and she had picked up a few to present on this f lea market . Mr. F., whounderstood the interest and the value of those stones, asked if she had moreand where they were located. Only two days later he was able to buy thewhole collect ion, some 120 stones; a t rue world-class t reasure! He prompt lycontacted me because he had read my books and knew how rare thosestones were; in fact he was already one of my customers.

First stones received. Photo by Alain Carion

At f irst he contacted me by phone and of fered to send a few pieces to mef ree of charge, asking only for my expert opinion. A few days later, I didreceive a package with a small plast ic box containing four small stones butthe shapes were not what I expected. I have a very good specimen in mypersonal collect ion and I have in the past sold a few small stones acquiredf rom John Saul, an American scient ist , one of the very few people who hadever collected any direct ly on the site. The shape I was expect ing was that ofa well-rounded marble, those were not , and I declined the of fer.

I kept that box on a corner of my desk for nearly a year before I f inally decidedto call him again and to go look at the whole batch. But then, when I saw thecomplete collect ion, all doubts were gone and I understood the value of thatdiscovery. I bought the whole lot and Mr. F. accepted to put me in contact withthe original seller, the grand-daughter of Madeleine Bouguarel, I wanted toknow more about the original owner of this except ional collect ion, and I evenobtained a picture of that lady. But among the many emails I exchanged withthe grand-daughter there is one that surprised me, it read exact ly: “Me, I knowthat she had f ields of cot ton at Daoukro, and that at the t ime she had sent afew stones to NASA”. This could only have been known by a few people atthat t ime; did Madeleine Bouguarel meet or hear of those American scient istswho 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 neverknow.

Mrs. Madeleine Bouguarel in 1970. Photo supplied by hergrand-daughter.

I presented this collect ion in exclusivit y during the Show of Tucson in February2014. Each tekt ite was sold with a cert if icate of authent icit y, with a picture,weight and dimensions of the individual stone. I personally guarantee each ofthese tekt ites. Also Pierre Rochet te of the Cent re Nat ional de la RechercheScient if ique in Aix-Marseille did a magnet ic suscept ibilit y study on about fort yof these Ivory Coast tekt ites. The study proved that the lot is homogeneouswith an average value clearly dif ferent f rom the magnet ic suscept ibilit y of anAust ralite f rom my Gallery and f rom the values published in the scient if iclit erature. All this because you can actually f ind tekt ites in Ivory Coast but it isimpossible even for an expert mineralogist to tell if t hey have been foundlocally or imported f rom China or Vietnam, as the local ones are st ill ext remelyrare. So even with the addit ion of these 120 stones, real tekt ites f rom IvoryCoast are st ill t he rarest of all tekt ites.

Meteorite Times MagazineTucson 2014 Meteorite Dealers Pictured on MPODby Editor

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

A special thank you to Paul at Tucson Meteorites for post ing dealer picturesdaily during the Tucson Show. Scrolling through them now brings back somany great memories f rom the show.

If you’d like more informat ion about these dealers and to see more picturesf rom their rooms please visit February 2014 at The Meteorite Picture of theDay.

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

Meteorite Times MagazineMeteorite-Times Sponsorsby Editor

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

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.

Photo by © 2010 James Tobin