George And Audrey DeLange

On July 19, 1912, the quiet of Holbrook, Arizona was interrupted at approximately 6:30 p.m. to 6:40 p.m. local time, by a series of loud booming sounds followed by several explosions in rapid succession. The entire explosive event lasted for about one half to perhaps one minute. As a few Holbrook residents looked to the sky, there was too much daylight to see the bright light of the meteor. From the explosive sounds, the meteor passed in a due east path over the town and it was actually seen by one witness to explode about a mile or two in the air and it is now estimated that about 14,000 - 16,000 pea sized extraterrestrial stones pelted the ground arround the section house located at the Aztec Rail Yard, six miles east of Holbrook. Reports from residents of the neighboring towns of St. Joseph, Woodruff, Pinedale, and Concho also confirmed the explosions from as far as 40 miles away. Some residents reported that the meteor left a smoke cloud in the sky. One eyewitness reported seeing puffs of dust rising fron the sand as pieces of the meteor hit the ground about a mile away! Several witnesses reported that it made the sound as if a cannon was being fired. All but one witness reported that it was too much daylight to actually see the meteor in the sky. They all heard the sounds! About two dozen people went to the Aztec Yard over the next two days and began recovering pieces of the meteorite. The largest stone recovered weighed about 14 lbs. Over the next several days several thousand fragments (about 14,000 ) were recovered and people have been doing so ever since. It is estimated that the Holbrook Meteorite had a total mass of 421 pounds. Most of the recovered pieces were sold to the Foote Mineral Company of Philadelphia. The largest Holbrook individual that was recovered, weighing about 14.5 pounds, has resided at the American Museum of Natural History in New York since Warren Foote obtained it soon after the fall. It was only recently returned to Arizona, and can be viewed in the Bateman Physical Sciences Center at Arizona State University in Tempe. As luck would have it, the meteorites fell over an elliptical area about one mile in length by one-half mile in width, centered over the old Aztec railroad yard, just outside of Holbrook, Navajo County, Arizona. The length of the ellipse runs exactly along the RR track of the Santa Fe Railroad. The meteorites at Holbrook can be easily recovered with a magnet, if you are lucky enough to come across a fragment. The meteorite contains flakes of elemental nickel/iron that are easily attracted to the magnetic field. If fact, one that I recovered "jumped" about 4 inches to my magnet. The Holbrook meteorite, and its fragments are classified as an L6 ordinary chondrite. They contain small chondrules and metal/sulphide nodules, the latter sometimes projecting through the very thin (much less than 1 mm) fusion crust. When examining a holbrook L6 meteorite, make note of the following characteristics: (1) the thin, shiny black and somewhat cracked fusion crust, (2) the pale interior, dominated by silicate minerals such as olivine and pyroxenes, and (3) the rusty spots, formed quite rapidly by terrestrial weathering due to the oxidation of specks of nickel-iron alloys and troilite (iron sulphide). Based on some studies involving the carbon dioxide abundance in kamacite grains, the Holbrook meteorite has been included within the L/LL group of meteorites. The further classification of the Holbrook meteorite remains to be further resolved through future studies. From some rare gas studies, it is thought that the parent body of the Holbrook meteorite underwent a catastrophic collision about 340 (±50) m.y. ago.