This is why, now with the world’s attention drawn to ambitious plans for the exploration of the cosmos, meteors and meteorites are of increasing interest and importance.
We have planned and written this book to be a sound and yet largely nontechnical introduction to the science of meteoritics. Our daily experiences in the Institute of Meteoritics have afforded us a fortunate advantage in making such a presentation. For, in addition to our work in the field, laboratory, and classrooms, we have frequently conducted young people through the museum and workrooms of the Institute and so have had the opportunity of learning their point of view at the same time they were venturing into ours. We hope our book will instill in the reader an abiding interest in the location and protection, the recovery and preservation and especially in the study of those cosmic missiles of iron, iron-stone, or stony composition that represent mankind’s only ponderable links with the vast universe lying beyond the limits of the earth’s atmosphere.
Although all photographs and special depictions not made by our staff are individually credited, we wish to express our personal thanks for the privilege of reprinting them here. All photographs that are without a credit line have been made by members of our staff.
Lincoln LaPaz Jean LaPaz University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, March 20, 1961
TABLE OF CONTENTS
[ PREFACE] 5 [1. A METEORITE FALLS IN THE TAIGA, U.S.S.R.] 11 [2. A METEORITE FALLS IN THE WHEATLAND, U.S.A.] 23 [3. FOUND AND LOST GIANTS] 36 [4. WHEN IS A CRATER A METEORITE CRATER?] 42 [5. HEAVEN KNOWS WHERE OR WHEN] 66 [6. FINDERS FOOLISH, FINDERS WISE] 75 [7. LANDMARKS, SKYMARKS, & DETECTORS] 84 [8. THE NATURE OF METEORS] 101 [9. THE NATURE OF METEORITES] 118 [10. TEKTITES, IMPACTITES, & “FOSSIL” METEORITES] 134 [11. OMENS AND FANTASIES] 147 [12. THE MODERN VIEW] 158 [13. PRESENT AND FUTURE APPLICATIONS] 166 [ FOR FURTHER READING] 177 [ INDEX] 181
SPACE NOMADS
METEORITES IN SKY, FIELD, & LABORATORY
Painting of the Ussuri fireball by the Iman artist, P. I. Medvedev.