251 grams. H5
TKW 100 kg. Observed fall 15 February 1997, Shandong Province, China.
Herbert writes:
Description:
20 years ago on this day, a meteorite shower occurred over three villages in Juancheng county, Heze prefecture of Shandong province, China. After the appearance of a fireball "brighter than an electric welding light", eyewitnesses reported "innumerable falling sparks" and white smoke. About one minute after the fireball exploded, a loud, resonating thunder was heard, and after two more minutes, an estimated number of 1000 fragments fell in an elliptical area measuring about 10.5 by 4.3 kilometers. One of the stones went trough the roof of a farmer's building in Xizhangzhuang village and landed in a pot on a stove. The total recovered weight was estimated to be over 100 kg, with the largest specimen having a mass of 2.7 kg.
The Juancheng meteorite shares the same date (February 15) of fall with the Chelyabinsk meteorite, which fell 16 years later.
The specimen shown here is a 251g individual, partly covered by thick, primary fusion crust, and partly with thin, secondary fusion crust. The broken face of this specimen allows to see the light gray interior of this H5 chondrite, with some brown staining by the metal and crossing shock veins. The first photo shows the meteorite on a strewn field map published in a paper by Chen, Wang and Wang in Meteoritics & Planetary Science, Vol. 33, A177-179 (1998). |