Description
Fragment nr 3. Sold in a box with label/certificate.
The Claxton meteorite is among the legendary American meteorites of modern times. As described in the scientific journal Meteoritics, “Vietnam veteran, Don Richardson had just stepped out of his mobile home. A whistling noise, reminding him of an incoming mortar round, made him flinch instinctively. Thirty-six meters from where he was standing an object impacted with a loud bang. It struck a mailbox, knocking it to the ground.” Meteorites are named after the places to where they are “delivered,” and on December 10, 1984 this meteorite directly impacted Ms. Carutha Barnard’s mailbox in Claxton, Georgia. This is the first and only known impact of a mailbox (which is somewhat ironic as the postal service provides the majority of meteorites to those interested in their acquisition). The weight of the Claxton meteorite was only 1455 grams and it has been subdivided extensively.
FALL OF THE CLAXTON, USA, STONY METEORITE
Name: CLAXTON
Place of fall: About 10 km SE. of Claxton, Evans County, Georgia, USA.
32°6’9’N., 81°52’22″W.
Date of fall: December 10, 1984, 1730 hrs.
Class and type: Stone. Olivine-hypersthene chondrite (L6). Olivine Fa25.4.
Number of individual
specimens: 1 recovered, possibly others fell.
Total weight: 1455 g
Circumstances of fall: A grapefruit sized stone, completely covered with thin black fusion crust, fell damaging a metal mail box and making a depression less than 30 cm in diameter in loose dirt. Two persons standing 36 m from where it landed and two others inside a mobile home about 20 m away reported a whistling sound followed by crash and a thud as the stone fell.
Source: SEAN Bulletin, 1984, 9, no. 11; H. Povenmire, Florida Fireball Patrol, 215 Osage Drive, Indian Harbour Beach, Florida 32937, USA.
