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74-618: Glenormiston Station , commonly known as Glenormiston , is a pastoral lease that operates as a cattle station in Queensland , Australia. Glenormiston is located about 113 kilometres (70 mi) west of Boulia and 335 kilometres (208 mi) north of Birdsville in Central West Queensland . Located at the top of the Channel Country the property shares a boundary with Marion Downs Station . The Georgina River flows through

148-562: A 61-kilogram (135 lb) iron meteorite was found in a Sinagua (c. 1100–1200 AD) burial cyst near Camp Verde, Arizona , respectfully wrapped in a feather cloth. A small pallasite was found in a pottery jar in an old burial found at Pojoaque Pueblo , New Mexico. Nininger reports several other such instances, in the Southwest US and elsewhere, such as the discovery of Native American beads of meteoric iron found in Hopewell burial mounds , and

222-672: A blend of rock and metal, the stony-iron meteorites . Modern classification of meteorites is complex. The review paper of Krot et al. (2007) summarizes modern meteorite taxonomy. About 86% of the meteorites are chondrites, which are named for the small, round particles they contain. These particles, or chondrules , are composed mostly of silicate minerals that appear to have been melted while they were free-floating objects in space. Certain types of chondrites also contain small amounts of organic matter , including amino acids , and presolar grains . Chondrites are typically about 4.55 billion years old and are thought to represent material from

296-454: A few centimeters in size that were formed—according to most scientists—by the impacts of large meteorites on Earth's surface. A few researchers have favored tektites originating from the Moon as volcanic ejecta, but this theory has lost much of its support over the last few decades. The diameter of the largest impactor to hit Earth on any given day is likely to be about 40 centimeters (16 inches), in

370-788: A flat, desert plain about 100 kilometres (62 mi) southeast of Dirj (Daraj), Libya . A few years later, a desert enthusiast saw photographs of meteorites being recovered by scientists in Antarctica, and thought that he had seen similar occurrences in northern Africa . In 1989, he recovered about 100 meteorites from several distinct locations in Libya and Algeria. Over the next several years, he and others who followed found at least 400 more meteorites. The find locations were generally in regions known as regs or hamadas : flat, featureless areas covered only by small pebbles and minor amounts of sand. Dark-colored meteorites can be easily spotted in these places. In

444-435: A given year about four metres (13 ft), and in a given century about 20 m (66 ft). These statistics are obtained by the following: Over at least the range from five centimeters (2.0 inches) to roughly 300 meters (980 feet), the rate at which Earth receives meteors obeys a power-law distribution as follows: where N (> D ) is the expected number of objects larger than a diameter of D meters to hit Earth in

518-465: A mass of 38.5 kilograms (85 lb), has an irregular sub-triangular shape with convex and concave surfaces. The area was struck by drought in 1952. In 1955 the property was completely cut off by floodwaters. A Trans Australia Airlines aeroplane was chartered to do an airdrop of food to the property which had been without fresh food for a week. The North Australian Pastoral Company acquired Glenormiston in 1968. The adjoining property, Marion Downs,

592-401: A meteorite shower falls is known as its strewn field . Strewn fields are commonly elliptical in shape, with the major axis parallel to the direction of flight. In most cases, the largest meteorites in a shower are found farthest down-range in the strewn field. Most meteorites are stony meteorites, classed as chondrites and achondrites . Only about 6% of meteorites are iron meteorites or

666-500: A meteorite that was understood by contemporaries to have fallen to the earth from Jupiter , the principal Roman deity. There are reports that a sacred stone was enshrined at the temple that may have been a meteorite. The Black Stone set into the wall of the Kaaba has often been presumed to be a meteorite, but the little available evidence for this is inconclusive. Some Native Americans treated meteorites as ceremonial objects. In 1915,

740-512: A radius of a hundred or more kilometers. Whistling and hissing sounds are also sometimes heard but are poorly understood. Following the passage of the fireball, it is not unusual for a dust trail to linger in the atmosphere for several minutes. As meteoroids are heated during atmospheric entry , their surfaces melt and experience ablation . They can be sculpted into various shapes during this process, sometimes resulting in shallow thumbprint-like indentations on their surfaces called regmaglypts . If

814-546: A rapid rise in commercial collection of meteorites. This process was accelerated when, in 1997, meteorites coming from both the Moon and Mars were found in Libya. By the late 1990s, private meteorite-collecting expeditions had been launched throughout the Sahara. Specimens of the meteorites recovered in this way are still deposited in research collections, but most of the material is sold to private collectors. These expeditions have now brought

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888-1103: A shooting star; astronomers call the brightest examples " bolides ". Once it settles on the larger body's surface, the meteor becomes a meteorite. Meteorites vary greatly in size. For geologists, a bolide is a meteorite large enough to create an impact crater . Meteorites that are recovered after being observed as they transit the atmosphere and impact the Earth are called meteorite falls . All others are known as meteorite finds . Meteorites have traditionally been divided into three broad categories: stony meteorites that are rocks, mainly composed of silicate minerals ; iron meteorites that are largely composed of ferronickel ; and stony-iron meteorites that contain large amounts of both metallic and rocky material. Modern classification schemes divide meteorites into groups according to their structure, chemical and isotopic composition and mineralogy. "Meteorites" less than ~1 mm in diameter are classified as micrometeorites , however micrometeorites differ from meteorites in that they typically melt completely in

962-428: A single person, Ivan Wilson. In total, nearly 140 meteorites were found in the region since 1967. In the area of the finds, the ground was originally covered by a shallow, loose soil sitting atop a hardpan layer. During the dustbowl era, the loose soil was blown off, leaving any rocks and meteorites that were present stranded on the exposed surface. Beginning in the mid-1960s, amateur meteorite hunters began scouring

1036-572: A terrible drought and the station would be thought to be lucky to be able to muster 10,000 cattle, with carcasses laying all over the property. Drought struck again in 1897 but to a lesser extent. Tyson died in 1898, Glenormiston was stocked with about 10,048 cattle and 220 horses at this time. When the station was advertised for sale in 1899 it had an area of 2,600 square miles (6,734 km) and as adjoining Herbert Downs and Roxborough Downs stations. The station sold later that year to Collins, White and Co. along with Carnarvon and Babiloora Stations in

1110-605: A year. This is based on observations of bright meteors seen from the ground and space, combined with surveys of near-Earth asteroids . Above 300 m (980 ft) in diameter, the predicted rate is somewhat higher, with a 2 km (1.2 mi) asteroid (one teraton TNT equivalent ) every couple of million years – about 10 times as often as the power-law extrapolation would predict. In 2015, NASA scientists reported that complex organic compounds found in DNA and RNA , including uracil , cytosine , and thymine , have been formed in

1184-456: Is 0.4%. Stony-iron meteorites constitute the remaining 1%. They are a mixture of iron-nickel metal and silicate minerals. One type, called pallasites , is thought to have originated in the boundary zone above the core regions where iron meteorites originated. The other major type of stony-iron meteorites is the mesosiderites . Tektites (from Greek tektos , molten) are not themselves meteorites, but are rather natural glass objects up to

1258-504: Is a meteorite collected after its arrival was observed by people or automated devices. Any other meteorite is called a "meteorite find". There are more than 1,100 documented falls listed in widely used databases, most of which have specimens in modern collections. As of January 2019 , the Meteoritical Bulletin Database had 1,180 confirmed falls. Most meteorite falls are collected on the basis of eyewitness accounts of

1332-413: Is currently prohibited by national law, but a number of international hunters continue to remove specimens now deemed national treasures. This new law provoked a small international incident , as its implementation preceded any public notification of such a law, resulting in the prolonged imprisonment of a large group of meteorite hunters, primarily from Russia, but whose party also consisted of members from

1406-609: Is light carrying country, safe if not over-stocked and is excellent country for raising an fattening heavy cattle . The Wongkadjera were one of the tribes local to this area and aboriginals once traded Pituri north along the Georgina River into Wangka-yutyurru country and south along the Mulligan River to the Lake Eyre system. The creek near the homestead is named Pituri Creek and it flows into Lake Idamea. J.A. Coglan lived in

1480-525: The Australian states and territories , leases constitute a land apportionment system created in the mid-19th century to facilitate the orderly division and sale of land to European colonists. Legislation ensured that certain Aboriginal rights were embodied in pastoral leases. However, according to historian Henry Reynolds , several colonial leaders ran roughshod over these rights, including Sir John Downer (when

1554-606: The Dhofar and Al Wusta regions of Oman, south of the sandy deserts of the Rub' al Khali , had yielded about 5,000 meteorites as of mid-2009. Included among these are a large number of lunar and Martian meteorites, making Oman a particularly important area both for scientists and collectors. Early expeditions to Oman were mainly done by commercial meteorite dealers, however, international teams of Omani and European scientists have also now collected specimens. The recovery of meteorites from Oman

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1628-460: The Northern Territory was governed by the colonial government of South Australia ); Sir John Forrest in the colony of Western Australia ; and Sir Samuel Griffith in Queensland . Pastoral leases exist in both Australian commonwealth law and state jurisdictions. They do not give all the rights that attach to freehold land: there are usually conditions which include a time period and

1702-690: The asteroid belt that never coalesced into large bodies. Like comets , chondritic asteroids are some of the oldest and most primitive materials in the Solar System . Chondrites are often considered to be "the building blocks of the planets". About 8% of the meteorites are achondrites (meaning they do not contain chondrules), some of which are similar to terrestrial igneous rocks . Most achondrites are also ancient rocks, and are thought to represent crustal material of differentiated planetesimals. One large family of achondrites (the HED meteorites ) may have originated on

1776-422: The genetic code of all life on Earth. These compounds have also occurred spontaneously in laboratory settings emulating conditions in outer space. Until recently, the source of only about 6% of meteorites had been traced to their sources: the Moon, Mars, and asteroid Vesta. Approximately 70% of meteorites found on Earth now appear to originate from break-ups of three asteroids. Most meteorites date from

1850-416: The same source , a collision that occurred somewhere between Jupiter and Mars. One of these fossil meteorites, dubbed Österplana 065 , appears to represent a distinct type of meteorite that is "extinct" in the sense that it is no longer falling to Earth, the parent body having already been completely depleted from the reservoir of near-Earth objects . A "meteorite fall", also called an "observed fall",

1924-522: The 10th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition found nine meteorites on a blue ice field near the Yamato Mountains . With this discovery, came the realization that movement of ice sheets might act to concentrate meteorites in certain areas. After a dozen other specimens were found in the same place in 1973, a Japanese expedition was launched in 1974 dedicated to the search for meteorites. This team recovered nearly 700 meteorites. Shortly thereafter,

1998-708: The American Southwest have been submitted with false find locations, as many finders think it is unwise to publicly share that information for fear of confiscation by the federal government and competition with other hunters at published find sites. Several of the meteorites found recently are currently on display in the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, and at UCLA 's Meteorite Gallery. A few meteorites were found in Antarctica between 1912 and 1964. In 1969,

2072-452: The Earth are caused by iron meteoroids, which are most easily able to transit the atmosphere intact. Examples of craters caused by iron meteoroids include Barringer Meteor Crater , Odessa Meteor Crater , Wabar craters , and Wolfe Creek crater ; iron meteorites are found in association with all of these craters. In contrast, even relatively large stony or icy bodies such as small comets or asteroids , up to millions of tons, are disrupted in

2146-597: The Meteorite Observation and Recovery Project, ran from 1971 to 1985. It too recovered a single meteorite, Innisfree , in 1977. Finally, observations by the European Fireball Network , a descendant of the original Czech program that recovered Příbram, led to the discovery and orbit calculations for the Neuschwanstein meteorite in 2002. NASA has an automated system that detects meteors and calculates

2220-690: The Příbram fall, other nations established automated observing programs aimed at studying infalling meteorites. One of these was the Prairie Network , operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1963 to 1975 in the midwestern US . This program also observed a meteorite fall, the Lost City chondrite, allowing its recovery and a calculation of its orbit. Another program in Canada,

2294-466: The US as well as several other European countries. Meteorites have figured into human culture since their earliest discovery as ceremonial or religious objects, as the subject of writing about events occurring in the sky and as a source of peril. The oldest known iron artifacts are nine small beads hammered from meteoritic iron. They were found in northern Egypt and have been securely dated to 3200 BC. Although

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2368-890: The United States began its own program to search for Antarctic meteorites, operating along the Transantarctic Mountains on the other side of the continent: the Antarctic Search for Meteorites ( ANSMET ) program. European teams, starting with a consortium called "EUROMET" in the 1990/91 season, and continuing with a program by the Italian Programma Nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide have also conducted systematic searches for Antarctic meteorites. The Antarctic Scientific Exploration of China has conducted successful meteorite searches since 2000. A Korean program (KOREAMET)

2442-593: The Warrego district. Rabbits were first seen at the station in the late 1890s with at least one permanent colony known to be located near Toco lake on the station which was the furthest north that the rabbit had ventured in 1899. A meteorite , known as the Glenormiston meteorite, was found on the station by the manager Mr F. H. Story, in 1925. Story sold the object to the University of Queensland in 1926. The meteorite had

2516-730: The arid areas of the southwestern United States. To date, thousands of meteorites have been recovered from the Mojave , Sonoran , Great Basin , and Chihuahuan Deserts , with many being recovered on dry lake beds. Significant finds include the three-tonne Old Woman meteorite , currently on display at the Desert Discovery Center in Barstow, California , and the Franconia and Gold Basin meteorite strewn fields; hundreds of kilograms of meteorites have been recovered from each. A number of finds from

2590-406: The atmosphere and fall to Earth as quenched droplets. Extraterrestrial meteorites have been found on the Moon and on Mars. Most meteoroids disintegrate when entering the Earth's atmosphere. Usually, five to ten a year are observed to fall and are subsequently recovered and made known to scientists. Few meteorites are large enough to create large impact craters . Instead, they typically arrive at

2664-516: The atmosphere can appear to be very bright, rivaling the sun in intensity, although most are far dimmer and may not even be noticed during the daytime. Various colors have been reported, including yellow, green, and red. Flashes and bursts of light can occur as the object breaks up. Explosions, detonations, and rumblings are often heard during meteorite falls, which can be caused by sonic booms as well as shock waves resulting from major fragmentation events. These sounds can be heard over wide areas, with

2738-433: The atmosphere, and do not make impact craters. Although such disruption events are uncommon, they can cause a considerable concussion to occur; the famed Tunguska event probably resulted from such an incident. Very large stony objects, hundreds of meters in diameter or more, weighing tens of millions of tons or more, can reach the surface and cause large craters but are very rare. Such events are generally so energetic that

2812-775: The case of several meteorite fields, such as Dar al Gani , Dhofar, and others, favorable light-colored geology consisting of basic rocks (clays, dolomites , and limestones ) makes meteorites particularly easy to identify. Although meteorites had been sold commercially and collected by hobbyists for many decades, up to the time of the Saharan finds of the late 1980s and early 1990s, most meteorites were deposited in or purchased by museums and similar institutions where they were exhibited and made available for scientific research . The sudden availability of large numbers of meteorites that could be found with relative ease in places that were readily accessible (especially compared to Antarctica), led to

2886-399: The course of clearing a field. The result was the discovery of more than 200 new meteorites, mostly stony types. In the late 1960s, Roosevelt County, New Mexico was found to be a particularly good place to find meteorites. After the discovery of a few meteorites in 1967, a public awareness campaign resulted in the finding of nearly 100 new specimens in the next few years, with many being by

2960-525: The discovery of the Winona meteorite in a Native American stone-walled crypt. In medieval China during the Song dynasty , a meteorite strike event was recorded by Shen Kuo in 1064 AD near Changzhou . He reported "a loud noise that sounded like a thunder was heard in the sky; a giant star, almost like the moon, appeared in the southeast" and later finding the crater and the still-hot meteorite within, nearby. Two of

3034-534: The early Solar System and are by far the oldest extant material on Earth. Analysis of terrestrial weathering due to water, salt, oxygen, etc. is used to quantify the degree of alteration that a meteorite has experienced. Several qualitative weathering indices have been applied to Antarctic and desertic samples. The most commonly employed weathering scale, used for ordinary chondrites , ranges from W0 (pristine state) to W6 (heavy alteration). "Fossil" meteorites are sometimes discovered by geologists. They represent

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3108-450: The extremely arid climate, there has been relatively little weathering or sedimentation on the surface for tens of thousands of years, allowing meteorites to accumulate without being buried or destroyed. The dark-colored meteorites can then be recognized among the very different looking limestone pebbles and rocks. In 1986–87, a German team installing a network of seismic stations while prospecting for oil discovered about 65 meteorites on

3182-424: The fireball or the impact of the object on the ground, or both. Therefore, despite the fact that meteorites fall with virtually equal probability everywhere on Earth, verified meteorite falls tend to be concentrated in areas with higher human population densities such as Europe, Japan, and northern India. A small number of meteorite falls have been observed with automated cameras and recovered following calculation of

3256-457: The first time, including ribose , suggesting that chemical processes on asteroids can produce some organic compounds fundamental to life, and supporting the notion of an RNA world prior to a DNA-based origin of life on Earth. In 2022, a Japanese group reported that they had found adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G), cytosine (C) and uracil (U) inside carbon-rich meteorites. These compounds are building blocks of DNA and RNA ,

3330-542: The highly weathered remains of meteorites that fell to Earth in the remote past and were preserved in sedimentary deposits sufficiently well that they can be recognized through mineralogical and geochemical studies. The Thorsberg limestone quarry in Sweden has produced an anomalously large number – exceeding one hundred – fossil meteorites from the Ordovician , nearly all of which are highly weathered L-chondrites that still resemble

3404-514: The homestead in the 1890s. The station was established in 1877 along with several other well known properties in the Channel Country as pastoralists expanded westward from the grasslands at the headwaters of the Diamantina. Other properties established at the same time included Marion Downs Station , Headingly Station , Herbert Downs, Noranside and Roxburgh Downs. The station was put up for auction in 1881 by its owner, Walter Douglas. At this time

3478-451: The hot deserts of Australia . Several dozen meteorites had already been found in the Nullarbor region of Western and South Australia . Systematic searches between about 1971 and the present recovered more than 500 others, ~300 of which are currently well characterized. The meteorites can be found in this region because the land presents a flat, featureless, plain covered by limestone . In

3552-572: The impact point. The first of these was the Příbram meteorite , which fell in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) in 1959. In this case, two cameras used to photograph meteors captured images of the fireball. The images were used both to determine the location of the stones on the ground and, more significantly, to calculate for the first time an accurate orbit for a recovered meteorite. Following

3626-554: The impactor is completely destroyed, leaving no meteorites. (The first example of a stony meteorite found in association with a large impact crater, the Morokweng impact structure in South Africa, was reported in May 2006.) Several phenomena are well documented during witnessed meteorite falls too small to produce hypervelocity craters. The fireball that occurs as the meteoroid passes through

3700-549: The laboratory under outer space conditions, using starting chemicals, such as pyrimidine , found in meteorites. Pyrimidine and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) may have been formed in red giants or in interstellar dust and gas clouds, according to the scientists. In 2018, researchers found that 4.5 billion-year-old meteorites found on Earth contained liquid water along with prebiotic complex organic substances that may be ingredients for life. In 2019, scientists reported detecting sugar molecules in meteorites for

3774-403: The lease has: Meteorite A meteorite is a rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or moon . When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction , pressure, and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gases cause it to heat up and radiate energy. It then becomes a meteor and forms a fireball , also known as

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3848-526: The leaseholder and the affected native title group. Australian jurisdictions have land management legislation that affects the administration of pastoral leases. As of November 2023 the legislation and management arrangements are as follows: The statutory provisions of pastoral leases are covered by the New Zealand Crown Pastoral Land Act 1998 and the Land Act 1948 . The holder of

3922-419: The leases falls mainly to state and territory governments. Leases within state jurisdictions have variations as to applicability from state to state. Under Commonwealth of Australia law, applicable only in the Northern Territory , they are agreements that allow for the use of Crown land by farmers. Native title can co-exist with pastoral leases, and Indigenous land use agreements may be made between

3996-463: The meteoroid maintains a fixed orientation for some time, without tumbling, it may develop a conical "nose cone" or "heat shield" shape. As it decelerates, eventually the molten surface layer solidifies into a thin fusion crust, which on most meteorites is black (on some achondrites , the fusion crust may be very light-colored). On stony meteorites, the heat-affected zone is at most a few mm deep; in iron meteorites, which are more thermally conductive,

4070-437: The more notable meteorites recovered include Tissint and Northwest Africa 7034 . Tissint was the first witnessed Martian meteorite fall in more than fifty years; NWA 7034 is the oldest meteorite known to come from Mars, and is a unique water-bearing regolith breccia. In 1999, meteorite hunters discovered that the desert in southern and central Oman were also favorable for the collection of many specimens. The gravel plains in

4144-509: The nearby Sandringham station was submerged. At some point prior to 1890 the station changed hands and the new owner was James Tyson who owned several other stations including Tupra, Mooroonowa, Juanbung and Bangate in New South Wales and Meteor Downs, Albinia, Mount Russell and Tinnenburra in Queensland. The property was stocked with 25,000 cattle in 1890. In 1893 the region was struck by

4218-547: The north eastern part of the property as it journeys southward further into the channel country. The station occupies an area of 6,920 square kilometres (2,672 sq mi) and encompasses a variety of country from the Toko Range to the west to the floodplains to the east. The land on the property is described as being composed of open and broken downs, with river and creek flats, low limestone ridges, inferior flats and rough hills. An assessing commissioner also noted that it

4292-787: The oldest recorded meteorite falls in Europe are the Elbogen (1400) and Ensisheim (1492) meteorites. The German physicist, Ernst Florens Chladni , was the first to publish (in 1794) the idea that meteorites might be rocks that originated not from Earth, but from space. His booklet was "On the Origin of the Iron Masses Found by Pallas and Others Similar to it, and on Some Associated Natural Phenomena" . In this he compiled all available data on several meteorite finds and falls concluded that they must have their origins in outer space. The scientific community of

4366-406: The only materials from other planets ever recovered by humans. About 5% of meteorites that have been seen to fall are iron meteorites composed of iron- nickel alloys , such as kamacite and/or taenite . Most iron meteorites are thought to come from the cores of planetesimals that were once molten. As with the Earth, the denser metal separated from silicate material and sank toward the center of

4440-502: The orbit, magnitude, ground track , and other parameters over the southeast USA, which often detects a number of events each night. Until the twentieth century, only a few hundred meteorite finds had ever been discovered. More than 80% of these were iron and stony-iron meteorites, which are easily distinguished from local rocks. To this day, few stony meteorites are reported each year that can be considered to be "accidental" finds. The reason there are now more than 30,000 meteorite finds in

4514-591: The original meteorite under a petrographic microscope , but which have had their original material almost entirely replaced by terrestrial secondary mineralization. The extraterrestrial provenance was demonstrated in part through isotopic analysis of relict spinel grains, a mineral that is common in meteorites, is insoluble in water, and is able to persist chemically unchanged in the terrestrial weathering environment. Scientists believe that these meteorites, which have all also been found in Russia and China, all originated from

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4588-481: The parent body of the Vesta Family , although this claim is disputed. Others derive from unidentified asteroids. Two small groups of achondrites are special, as they are younger and do not appear to come from the asteroid belt. One of these groups comes from the Moon, and includes rocks similar to those brought back to Earth by Apollo and Luna programs. The other group is almost certainly from Mars and constitutes

4662-569: The planetesimal, forming its core. After the planetesimal solidified, it broke up in a collision with another planetesimal. Due to the low abundance of iron meteorites in collection areas such as Antarctica, where most of the meteoric material that has fallen can be recovered, it is possible that the percentage of iron-meteorite falls is lower than 5%. This would be explained by a recovery bias; laypeople are more likely to notice and recover solid masses of metal than most other meteorite types. The abundance of iron meteorites relative to total Antarctic finds

4736-489: The same year an unfortunate cook, who had only taken up the position a couple of days earlier, was killed by Aboriginals in the area. The station was successfully sold at auction to Mr William Kelman. Flooding occurred at the station in 1885 when somewhere between 12 inches (305 mm) and 17 inches (432 mm) of rain fell over the course of a month. The Georgina River and the Diamatina Rivers both were flooded and

4810-530: The so-called "Northwest Africa" meteorites. When they get classified, they are named "Northwest Africa" (abbreviated NWA) followed by a number. It is generally accepted that NWA meteorites originate in Morocco, Algeria, Western Sahara, Mali, and possibly even further afield. Nearly all of these meteorites leave Africa through Morocco. Scores of important meteorites, including Lunar and Martian ones, have been discovered and made available to science via this route. A few of

4884-408: The station was 1,100 square miles (2,849 km) in area and was stocked with a herd of 3000 highly bred Durham cattle and Hereford cattle , some horses, all plant, stores and stock. The lands were described as "open rolling downs with saltbush and cotton bush , thickly grassed with Mitchell grass and other varieties. Interspersed with open patches of gidyah , mulga and other timbers." Later

4958-455: The structure of the metal may be affected by heat up to 1 centimetre (0.39 in) below the surface. Reports vary; some meteorites are reported to be "burning hot to the touch" upon landing, while others are alleged to have been cold enough to condense water and form a frost. Meteoroids that disintegrate in the atmosphere may fall as meteorite showers, which can range from only a few up to thousands of separate individuals. The area over which

5032-495: The surface at their terminal velocity and, at most, create a small pit. Large meteoroids may strike the earth with a significant fraction of their escape velocity (second cosmic velocity), leaving behind a hypervelocity impact crater. The kind of crater will depend on the size, composition, degree of fragmentation, and incoming angle of the impactor. The force of such collisions has the potential to cause widespread destruction. The most frequent hypervelocity cratering events on

5106-635: The total number of well-described meteorites found in Algeria and Libya to more than 500. Meteorite markets came into existence in the late 1990s, especially in Morocco . This trade was driven by Western commercialization and an increasing number of collectors. The meteorites were supplied by nomads and local people who combed the deserts looking for specimens to sell. Many thousands of meteorites have been distributed in this way, most of which lack any information about how, when, or where they were discovered. These are

5180-450: The type of activity permitted. According to Austrade , such leases cover about 44% of mainland Australia (3,380,000 km (1,310,000 sq mi)), mostly in arid and semi-arid regions and the tropical savannahs . They usually allow people to use the land for grazing traditional livestock, but more recently have been also used for non-traditional livestock (such as kangaroos or camels ), tourism and other activities. Management of

5254-589: The use of the metal found in meteorites is also recorded in myths of many countries and cultures where the celestial source was often acknowledged, scientific documentation only began in the last few centuries. Meteorite falls may have been the source of cultish worship . The cult in the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World , possibly originated with the observation and recovery of

5328-582: The world's collections started with the discovery by Harvey H. Nininger that meteorites are much more common on the surface of the Earth than was previously thought. Nininger's strategy was to search for meteorites in the Great Plains of the United States, where the land was largely cultivated and the soil contained few rocks. Between the late 1920s and the 1950s, he traveled across the region, educating local people about what meteorites looked like and what to do if they thought they had found one, for example, in

5402-587: Was acquired at about the same time. Stephen and Narda Bryce moved to the property in 2001 and Stephen was still managing the property and about ten staff in 2012. The property has a carrying capacity of about 7000 head of cattle depending on the season. Moderate flooding was experienced at Glenormiston in 2010 following heavy rains locally and further north in the Georgina catchment. 22°54′54″S 138°48′16″E  /  22.91497°S 138.80455°E  / -22.91497; 138.80455 Pastoral lease In

5476-466: Was launched in 2007 and has collected a few meteorites. The combined efforts of all of these expeditions have produced more than 23,000 classified meteorite specimens since 1974, with thousands more that have not yet been classified. For more information see the article by Harvey (2003). At about the same time as meteorite concentrations were being discovered in the cold desert of Antarctica, collectors discovered that many meteorites could also be found in

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