April 2002Volume 2, Issue 1
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North Mississippi
Gem and Mineral
Society Officers
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President: Floy Hawkins
P.O. Box 7312
Tupelo, MS 38802
(662) 844-7441
studioh@dixie-net.com
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Vice President: Bob Marshall
68 CR 331
Iuka, MS 38852
(662) 423-3791
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Secretary: Rena Everett
69 Jeff Street
Oxford, MS 38655
(662) 234-8561
mlgae@olemiss.edu
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Treasurer: Shirly Randle
905 Poorhouse Road, E.
Starkville, MS 39759
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Newsletter Editor: Sandy Grych
P.O. Box 283
Mathiston, MS 39752
(662) 263-8405
sigrych@yahoo.com
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Next Meeting
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Saturday, April 20
1 P.M.
Northwest Regional LibraryCorinth, Mississippi
Directions:
Hwy 45 N to Shiloh Rd. (Wenasoga
Rd. Exit). Turn east to Webster St.
Turn right (south_to Main St. Turn
right (west). Library is several blocks
down on the left.
Or...
From Hwy. 45 turn east onto Hwy. 72.
Turn left (north) onto Harper Rd.
Turn left (west)onto Shiloh Rd.
Turn left(south) onto Webster. Then
follow the rest of the directions above.
Program:
Video TapeCollecting Earth's
Natural Treasures
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NMGMS March Minutes by Rena Everett, Secretary
Club makes decisions and examines long-range goals
The March meeting of the North Mississippi Gem and Mineral Society was called to order by President Floy Hawkins at 1:15 p.m. on Saturday, March 16, 2002, at the Tupelo Public Library. Floy welcomed the 21 members and 6 guests that were present, and all recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. The minutes of the February meeting were approved as printed in the Nugget. Treasurer Shirley Randle reported that she had paid $79.67 in expenses during the past month, leaving us with a balance of $355.46 in the treasury. She also reminded members that, since this is our one-year anniversary, dues are due and payable today.
Mary Reed’s name had been presented in January as the nominating committee’s choice for Vice President. There were no nominations from the floor, and it was moved and seconded that Mary be our Vice President. She was elected by a unanimous vote. Mary and the other officers were installed.
Floy then spoke about our long range goals, those being our having a show at some point in the future and having a more active junior group. Rena Everett volunteered to be in charge of the stamps that our club will collect for the Federation. Floy said that it is possible that the Juniors would be able to help her. Floy and Bill put announcements about the meeting on WCBI and WTVA, the local television stations, on Comcast and in The Tupelo Daily Journal. These announcements were successful in that we had several very interested guests attend the meeting. If members in other towns will send the address (snail mail or e-mail) of their newspapers to Floy, she will be glad to send announcements of coming meetings to those papers. It was also suggested that we might want to see if we could have the meetings announced on Mississippi ETV, which broadcasts all over the state.
Mary Reed and Susan Curry, our co-historians, have finished the history of the club’s first year, and their really impressive scrapbook was on the table for all to see. Sandy Grych will continue sending the Nugget by e-mail to those who have e-mail capability. If your address changes, please let Sandy know. With the help of Matthew Huber, our newsletter can be found on the web at:
www.angelfire.com/mi/schnoz/club/feb_newsletter.html
Rena Everett announced two awards for Juniors that are given through the Southeast Federation each year. The first is the Junior of the Year Award. Juniors get points toward this award for “rocky things” that they do, such as attending meetings, going on field trips, writing articles for the newsletter, putting together displays, and many others. A really special prize is promised to the winner. The other award is a scholarship to a workshop at either William Holland or Wildacres for a Federation Junior and “responsible adult.” If there are those who are interested in either of these two awards, contact George or Rena Everett for more information. Floy then reminded us of the workshop for Juniors to be held at William Holland in July. Since there were only three juniors in attendance, making a decision on a name for our juniors was put off once again.
Floy had printed ballots so that the members could vote on whether we should “light” or continue our roving meetings. After the ballots were counted, there were 10 for having all of our meetings in one place (6 who specified Tupelo and 4 who didn’t specify a place), 9 who wanted to continue roving, and 3 who wanted us to have two permanent meeting places, one in Starkville and one in Tupelo.
There were several possible logos submitted at this meeting. It was decided that members would look at the submissions, think about them during the next thirty days, and we will vote next month. Sandy Grych proposed that our club mascot be “Rocky,” the hound dog. “Rocky” has appeared in several issues of the Nugget, and Sandy had submitted a picture of him for all to see. We will discuss that next month also.
The featured gemstone for April will be diamond. Arch Murphree suggested that to bolster our sagging bank account we have a sort of a different silent auction next month. Each member is asked to bring 2 gifts, a gag gift and a nice gift. These gifts are to be totally closed up in a box or bag. Members will then bid on which bag(s) or box(es) they want to have.
Rena Everett announced that the Memphis Gem and Mineral Show will be April 27 and 28 at the Pipkin Building at the Fairgrounds in Memphis. The business meeting was adjourned at 2:00 p.m. so that members could visit and enjoy the delicious refreshments provided by our hosts and the birthday cake, which Sandy Grych brought. After our time of snacking and visiting, members then enjoyed the program, which was brought by our own Patty Thompson, who is a local jeweler. She brought some of her equipment so that we could try it out and see some of the ways that are used to identify gemstones. It was a fascinating program, and the members all enjoyed the “hands on” approach.
Respectfully submitted,
Rena Everett, Secretary
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Meteorites: Fascinating, Sacred, Practical, Magical, and Adorning
By John M. Wright
The earliest known records of mankind are the pictorial representations left by cave dwellers. While we really do not completely understand the significance of all cave drawings, these early records give us much insight regarding the cave man’s way of life. They were intelligent social beings adept at surviving in a harsh environment and recording things or events they considered necessary or important. These drawings normally depict animals, human handprints, and primitive child like stick drawings of themselves, but very importantly they also depict natural occurring events that they observed. Meteors or shooting stars and comets are natural events often illustrated in cave drawings, confirming that they have inspired interest, fear, or admiration since the earliest recorded history of mankind.
Mankind’s fascination with the stars has been constant throughout history and any object such as a meteorite that could be directly attributed to an origin in outer space was considered to be a very rare treasure. The two items held in sacred esteem by the followers of Islam (Moslems) are bones believed to be from Abraham and a meteorite. Jim Bowie’s knife according to folklore was made from a meteorite. A meteorite has magical properties, if you want to believe the mystics; they have adorned the crowns of potentates, are eagerly sought by museums, and considered by some to be the vehicle that transported life to earth from other astrological bodies.
Any foreign object from outer space that is on a direct collision course with earth becomes a “meteor” when it enters the earth’s atmosphere and starts to burn. If any recognizable residual part is left, this is called a “meteorite”. Conglomerates of space debris cemented together by ice are “comets”. Individual objects, large ones especially, floating around out in space that do not qualify as a planet or satellite are known as “asteroids”. The adequate identification, characteristics, and nature of any one of these objects I have described would justify a rather lengthy book, but for the purpose of this article, I think the brief renditions given will suffice.
The origin of meteors is a mystery that has prompted numerous theories. The most commonly accepted origin is space debris resulting from astronomical galactic events such as supernova explosions or simply materials left over when our galaxy and solar system formed. Regardless of how they came to exist, the problem is that there are millions of them floating around in space and they range in size from microns to gigantic proportions.
Earth is constantly being bombarded by meteors. Most are small and burn up upon entering our atmosphere causing the tattletale streaks of light seen at night known as shooting stars. They are just as plentiful during daylight hours, but are difficult to see.
Large chunks of material floating around in space are known as asteroids and a tremendous number of these are in an orbital pattern around our sun forming a belt (Kuiper Belt) at the outer limits of our solar system. A smaller belt of celestial debris (Asteroid Belt) exists between Mars and Jupiter. Many believe that this belt is the remnants of a former planet.
For unknown reasons items of space debris are occasionally knocked out of their normal orbit and drawn by gravity towards the sun. These items fall into an elongated elliptical orbit as they traverse our solar system. Their orbits gradually deteriorate usually taking thousands of years, but some of the smaller ones are drawn towards the sun at much faster rates. Keep in mind that these smaller items may be the size of a freight train or a large ship. Larger items, those called asteroids, may be the size of a small planet.
Some of the materials in the asteroid belt are conglomerations of smaller matter held together by ice. When these are knocked out of their normal orbit and drawn in an eccentric elliptical arc toward the sun they tend to partially melt leaving long trails of vapor and residue that reflects light and are known as comets.
Meteorites or space debris are often residual leftovers from the melting of comets when their orbits bring them close to our sun. If the comet’s path happens to cross earth’s orbit at some point, its trash so to speak is left for us to run into. This excessive amount of material results in meteor showers and they occur at predictable periods each year. The weather forecaster on your local television channel normally alerts the public as to when these showers will occur.
Sometimes the cementing materials of a comet, the ice, or the comet itself, is the projectile that impacts with earth. An example of this occurred in 1908 in a remote section of Russia’s Siberian province named Tungusta. The impact was so great that it leveled over a hundred square miles of forest with trees near the center being burned to cinders in a flash. Shock waves from the explosion were felt all over the world and the flash of light was so great that you could read a newspaper at night as far away as London.
Comets have always evoked fear, awe, and superstition. Mystics equate the appearance of comets as harbingers of disasters, auguries of divine wrath that foretell all kinds of gloom and doom.
Halley’s Comet is probably the most popular and well known. In 1707 Edmond Halley, a well known mathematician, set out to prove his friend Newton’s theory that comets were astrological bodies that circled the sun. Using historical records of comets he found one that met the criteria of his calculations and made a prediction of its reappearance in 76 year cycles. He did not live long enough to see the return, but it did, right on schedule, and in honor of his work bears his name.
We know that large objects do impact with earth and while we consider these impacts to be rare, in geologic time, the actual occurrence is quite frequent. The earth’s surface is constantly undergoing change and this geological mechanism erodes the evidence over time. The meteor crater located in Arizona is a youngster at twenty thousand years and because of its location in a desert type environment, it is well preserved. If it had landed in the southeastern part of the United States, there probably would be very little evidence left. The bulldozing effect of glaciers moving across Canada has exposed numerous impact craters.
One that is easily identified and illustrates the tremendous energy of a very large meteor impact is Hudson Bay.
If you have a map, look at the south-east end of the Bay. You will see a crescent shape indicative of an impact crater. Now visualize the meteor coming in from the south and blasting material to the north. They think this one happened way before there was any type of life on earth. Numerous other meteor craters have recently been identified using satellite photography and more are being found with this new technology.
Currently, the most popular theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs was that a large asteroid collided with earth near Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsular. Yes, it became a meteor when it entered the earth’s atmosphere and probably a real beauty. There is a good chance that the same thing will happen again, hopefully way in the future, and end our world as we know it
Contrary to popular opinion, asteroids and meteors do not normally run into earth; more often it’s just the opposite, earth runs into them. The earth spins on its axis at 1669 kilometers (1043.8 miles) per hour and orbits around the sun at 107,208 kilometers (67,005 miles) per hour. Note: Our solar system is located in the outer extremities of one of several spiral arms of stars that form the galaxy system to which we belong. We can see the other stars in our particular spiral and refer to them as the Milky Way. It is estimated that our solar system travels at a speed of more than a million miles per hour in its orbit around the center of our galaxy. With these astronomical speeds its no wonder that most meteorites burn up upon entering our atmosphere. The velocity of any sizeable meteors that remain intact and impact earth exerts tremendous explosive force. The meteor that made the crater in Arizona was just a little larger than a mini van, yet this crater is more than a mile in diameter and several hundred feet deep.
Large bodies of space debris tend to break up as they approach earth forming a unique cluster similar to a bomb burst and are called “bolas”. Bolas also occur after entry into the atmosphere and are quite spectacular. Those able to maintain their integrity and enter earth’s atmosphere without breaking up are called “fireballs.” If you are ever fortunate enough to see a fireball, you will also probably be able to hear it sizzle and crackle. You might even hear a sonic boom. Just to confuse the issue a little more, you could have an asteroid break up before entering earth’s atmosphere (bola) and become several meteors, then have some of these become fireballs, bola again, burn up, or become smaller fireballs.
American scientist landed a Volkswagon size spacecraft on an asteroid known as 433 Eros February 12, 2001. This asteroid is about 21 miles long by 8 miles wide and just one of many thousands that orbit our sun. The original plans did not include landing the spacecraft on the asteroid and it did not have a landing mechanism. The space craft was designed to monitor the asteroid and be abandoned as space junk at the end its expected life span, but the scientist discovered that the craft still had energy left and decided to try for a landing. The odds were against the craft surviving the landing, but scientist felt that if this last effort worked it would yield even more important information than was originally planned. I’m quite sure that we will be hearing a lot more about this as the data is analyzed and published.
Hopefully, I have at least momentarily captured your imagination and created or enhanced your interest in a very minute area of astronomy. So now you want to know how do you get your hands on one of these visitors from outer space called meteorites. The easy way is to buy one, but that is no fun and it can be costly. The best way is to go out and try to find your own. If you decide on this course of action, you will learn why they are so darn rare.
The first thing that I recommend to those hardy individuals that want to tramp the hills and valleys in search of meteorites is to know what you are looking for. This will require research and study. You must know the distinguishing characteristics of a meteorite if you are to accurately identify it. A burnt surface may be the result of a brush fire or a rock used as the perimeter of a camp fire. Word description and pictures are helpful, but in my opinion, the best way to learn is examine known specimens. You can see meteorites at some gem and mineral shows, museums, universities,
and of course in private collections. Try to associate with experienced individuals or groups that share this interest.
Search for information on past meteor occurrences. Meteor showers are often reported in newspapers, particularly the local papers in the area where the incident occurred. The weatherman at your local television station may have information you can use. Try to affiliate with clubs or associations that share this interest. A lot of information is readily available on the internet, but may not be applicable specifically to your local area or a location you want to visit.
Talk to people that live in your local area or the area you plan to hunt. I find that farmers are extremely knowledgeable and usually very willing to share information. Remember, if you find anything be sure to share with the individual that provided you with assistance or owned the property where you made the find.
You should know the type of material that normally occurs in a search area. If you are hunting in Mississippi, this is not a real problem as any rock or chunks of metal you find more than likely came from somewhere else. If possible, pick the areas where you plan to search. Heavy undergrowth or forested areas are extremely difficult places to try to find anything.
I personally like to go over plowed fields after a heavy rain. I also prefer to hunt in the winter or early spring before the grass and weeds take over. It also helps me avoid snakes, chiggers, ticks, and heat stroke. Metal detectors and a good magnifying glass are extremely helpful but, a good pair of walking shoes and perseverance are your best assets. Most importantly, remember that the majority of meteorites are usually very small.
Happy hunting and the best of luck in finding that special “out of this world” item for your collection.
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North Mississippi Gem & Mineral Society
Meeting Schedule
Saturday, April 20 1 p.m.
Corinth Public Library
Video Tape: Collecting Earth's Natural Treasures
Saturday, May 18 1 p.m.
Walnut, Mississippi
Saturday, August 24 (tentative)
Picnic with MGMS at the Petrified Forest
Flora, MS
Saturday, Oct. 19
Lignite Mine
Chocataw County, MS
Saturday, Nov. 16 (tentative)
Saturday, Dec. 21 (tentative)
Christmas Party
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