Interesting debate. Reminds me on the good old days of the Acedemie
Francaise, the days before Biot and Chladni, where scientists doubted the
accounts of local eyewitnesses on rocks falling from the skies for
sociological reasons.
As far as I am concerned, I still trust the people who measured e.g. the
cosmogenic radionuclides of the meteorites produced by these recent falls. I
absolutely doubt that the Swiss or French labs who worked on these stones
made up their results just to make them fit the newspaper reports and
eyewitness accounts.
Svend Buhl
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Grossman" <jgross...@usgs.gov>
To: "Meteorite-list" <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2009 11:27 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Northwest Africa Falls - Question
Martin and list,
Actually, there is something suspicious. Northwest Africa (the countries
you listed plus Western Sahara and Tunisia) has seen between 0 and 3 falls
per decade from the 1900s through the 1980s. The 1990s saw 6, and the
2000s have now got 8. There is no parallel increase in the rest of
Africa, which in fact has been steadily declining in fall rates since the
1940s. Europe has also been declining since the 1930s (in fall rates), as
has North America. I think northwest Africa is the only place in the
world that is seeing any kind of increase in rate, and it has been
dramatic, tripling in the last decade.
The are various sociological reasons why this increase might have
happened, which we can argue about. But there certainly IS something to
raise ones eyebrows.
Jeff
Martin Altmann wrote:
Hi Ryan,
it's because of the iron mountain in Atlas, which still has to be found
and
which attracts with his magnetic field all iron-bearing lumps from space.
No. Take a World map, hold little Europe (forget a little bit about
Scandinavia),
hold it against that NWA region, Algeria, Mali, Niger, Morocco,
Mauretania....
And let's count the falls:
Let's start with Zag 1998.
NWA-Regions:
Zag 1998
El Idrissa 1998
Djoumine 1999
Beni M'hira 2001
Bensour 2002
Oum Dreyga 2003
Maigatari-Danduma 2004
Benguerir 2004
Bassikounou 2006
Chergach 2007
And now the new possible fall.
Europe:
Ourique 1998
Leighlinbridge 1999
Moravka 2000
San Michele 2002
Neuschwanstein 2002
Alby sur Cheran 2002
Villalbeto 2004
Moss 2006
Puerto Lapice 2007
Romanian Fall 2008
11 : 11.
So nothing suspicious.
USA had 7
India 10
Best!
Martin
Ok Folks,
I am curious to know why there are so many witnessed (recovered)
meteorite
falls in Northwest Africa as opposed to anywhere else in the world. Is
there
a good logical and/or scientifc explanation for this?.. or just a
coincidence? I understand that some "falls" simply turn out to be a case
of
Nomadic lies in an attempt to liquidate (recycle) old material, but what
about the others? Perhpas it has something to do with it's geographical
location in relation to..?
And yes, I do understand these people spend countless hours outdoors, in
the
desert, ect. but..
What are your thoughts?
Ryan
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--
Dr. Jeffrey N. Grossman phone: (703) 648-6184
US Geological Survey fax: (703) 648-6383
954 National Center
Reston, VA 20192, USA
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