Willamette Meteorite

Willamette is the name of a meteorite, the Fund is officially stated in the U.S. State of Oregon with the 1902. However, he was already several thousand years ago down on the ground.

Features

The Willamette meteorite is classified as an iron meteorite class IIIAB as Middle Oktaedrite ( Om ).

Whitefield was 91.46 % iron, 8.30% nickel. Dawson, however, 91.66 % iron, 7.88% nickel, 0.21 % cobalt, 0.09 % phosphorus. The density is 7.7 g / cm ³.

With the size of a small car - the length is 3 m, width 2.16 m, height 1.26 m - is the largest of the Willamette meteorite that has been found in the U.S. and applied at the time of its discovery as the third largest in the world today as the sixth largest.

It has a weight of 15.5 tons. It has been calculated that were up to 6 t removed the meteorite by the weather over the past 13,000 years. This would result in an original weight of 21 t. Scientists suspect that it comes from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and part of the iron core of a planet was, collided with another celestial body billions of years ago.

Indicative of its appearance is the conical shape and the heavily pitted surface with cavities up to 50 cm depth. The large cavities on the flat side of the meteorite were formed not in space, but only on the ground due to weather conditions. They were formed by the chemical reaction of rainwater with the sulphides One of the rock, creating a weak sulfuric acid was formed. The etching of this acid, an extremely slow process, decomposed the metal and created the cavities, which can be seen today. Dr. John Wasson, an expert in iron meteorites at UCLA, wrote to the unusual bubbles on the edge of an inclusion: "This blistering is fascinating. We can not remember to have ever seen so -edged iron sulfide segments in a Gesteinsschmelzung. "

Locality

The meteorite was discovered in 1902 by Ellis Hughes, at the eastern end of the Tualatin Valley, about 3 km northwest of the town West Linn, Oregon. The site is listed in the catalog of the meteorite with the following data: 45 ° 22'N, 122 ° 35'W.

Studies, however, indicate that he is not come down there, but in what is now Canada. Glacial ice that shaped the North American landscape about 15,000 years ago, transported to the meteor in today's Willamette Valley. Its peak about 1 m was buried in the ground, the opposite side was almost parallel to the surface. The surrounding soil was enriched with nickel.

Ownership

To the disappointment of the finder of possession of the meteorite was initially awarded the Oregon Iron and Steel Company, on whose land he was found. Since 1905 he was publicly exposed. In 1906 he was bought for U.S. $ 20,600 by Mrs. William Dodge and donated to the American Museum of Natural History, where he is to visit since June 7, 1906. The purchase price was then the highest that has ever been spent on a single object of the museum.

The Clackamas Indians, who inhabited the area of the Willamette Valley before the first European settlers arrived, gave the stone the name Tomanowos. They wrote him divine and healing forces, and saw him as a link between heaven, earth and water. That build spiritual traditions have built up inventory. 1990 pulled the Association of Native in court to make their property rights on meteorites law. In 2000, the museum and the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon signed an agreement. It specifies that the meteorite remains for scientific purposes in the museum, the tribe, however, for religious, historical and cultural purposes will be given access. Should the museum in the long term no longer issue the Willamette meteorite, he falls to the Grand Ronde Community.

1998 replaced the museum the crown piece of the meteorite against a piece of Martian rocks from a private collector. For the new owner from New York a profitable business: Without further ado, he cut off a thin slice of the meteorite pieces. The only 100 gram disc was sold for 13,000 Euros. Turn their buyers offered mini- pieces of the meteorite for sale. Descendants of the Clackamas Indians protested against the Astro- commerce.