Hi Steve and List,
I also find field reports such as this to be
interesting reading. Just think, we get to read about these trips as they
happen and our kids can read about them from later books and periodical
articles.
In fact, I hope Mike and others who recover
meteorites publish their reports in book form one day.
-Walter
------------------------------------------ www.branchmeteorites.comWalter
Branch, Ph.D. Branch Meteorites PO Box 60492 Savannah, GA
31420
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, October 10, 2003 10:30
AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] India
Meteorite Report from the scene
Michael,
With the exception of the initial Matteo rant, which kind of turned me
off, the India trip report I find very interesting. Keep this up;
these on site field reports. That is where you shine.
Steve Schoner/ams
Hi
everyone, internet here is little better than smoke signals, it has taken
me almost 2 hours to go through 50 emails, so slow, and Matteo's crying
like a 2 year old baby. Matteo, shut the hell up, PLEASE, if I
see another email about "Other people is make prices ruin" I will have
to beat the hell out of you when I see you (Just kidding, but only a
little). OK I am in the strewnfield. I have a small piece of the
meteorite. IT is an H chondrite and similar to Zag, veining
and slickensides. There is EXTREME flooding here, all parts are
under water, there is NO HOPE of recovering more material unless it is
simply in a village and not known about yet. the strewnfield is some
miles long, traveling between two villages that the local assured me
were only 5 km apart by air took over 2 hours by road (if you can call
it that). India is beautiful and horrible at the same time. The road is
covered with untold thousands of people, dogs, cows, goats, etc, NONE
of which move or are even slightly annoyed by the incessant use of the
horn, we actually ran over a dogs foot yesterday, he would not move until
the car ran right over him. I felt sorry for it but then again
if anything is that stupid..... I also wish I had a gun with me, to
put some of the stupidist creature on the planet (The cow) out
of their misery (or ignorant bliss) whichever it is. There are
thousands of them, laying in the roads, cars just go around them
whereever possible. the entire area is flooded, and I mean bad,
hundreds of thousands of miles under water, looks like the ocean with
small patched of trees and huts standing out of it. Roads are almost not
more than small trails with everyone and everything blocking
them. Most of the meteorite has been taken by the police, I am working
on tracking down a couple of pieces, but it looks hopeless as it takes me
6 hours to get to the area even though it is only 70 miles away, the
max spees is about 10 miles an hour on the highway and about 2 miles
an hour on the village route. these are small villages, I mean aobut 10
familes each, no electricity, nothing more than some mud huts in a
land of mud. I had to go on motorcycle for a few miles last night with a
spectacular lightning show in the distance, it was the most eery and
beatiful drive I have ever taken, the flooded swampland, cool
wind, nice people and all made me fell like I was in some sort of 16
th century expedition. When we got to the village, the people showed me
where a 6-8 kilo stone fell, coming down right down the slanted roof of
a hut, denting in the grass roof and making a large crater at the base
of the hut. That stone was taken 2 days ago, but I have two competing
guys traking down the person who took it, to get it for me. We will
see if this hut smasher comes home with me. I do have a 13 gram
fragment of it, (They smashed it). The meteorite is like Zag, large veins
and slickensides. The 6 hour trip back to town last night was the
most harrowing of my life, I would say at least 50 near head on
collisions with giant trucks, busses, all without lights, cars on the
wrong side of the road, washed out roads, cows of course (and they would
much rather drive off a cliff and die than kill a cow here!). there
should be hundreds of stones, but it is all rivers and swamps and rice
paddies, all under several feet of water, so virtually none will be
recovered. I saw photos of the 5 kilo stone, very nice. Anyway, sorry
for the format of this email, but using the computer here is not
easy. Anyone thinking of coming to get some, forget it, as it is, with
my 13 gram piece, i will have paid over $400.00 gram for my piece! But I
will have memories of a lifetime of this hunt, which doing it alone,
I already consider by far my most exotic and interesting. the
people in the villages do not speak english or Hindi, but Orissi, a local
tribal language. the meteorite fell only about 1/2 mile from the Bay
of Bengal (but now it seems to be in the Bay of bengal with everything
under water anyway).
I will post more info as soon as I can.
Mike Farmer Meteorite Hunter Writing from Orissa
India.
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