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Thin Sections

20 grams.   L6

TKW 14.5 kg. Observed fall December 7, 1863.


Vincent writes:

On Monday, December 7, 1863, after a journey of several tens of millions of years around the Sun and hundreds of billions of kilometers, a very bright bolide crossed the sky from south to north and ended its wild ride in Belgium in the village of Tourinnes-la-Grosse. (50 Km east of Brussels). A meteorite fell on a paved road only 5 meters from of a group of residents who had rushed outside of their houses, frightened by several powerful explosions from a quiet sky.

One day later, another 7 Kg meteorite was found in a forest of the Beauvechain village. It had broken a tree with a circumference 60 centimeters, and was found in a little impact hole at the base of the tree.

This year is the 150th anniversary of the meteorite. Several fragments of the Tourinnes-la-Grosse meteorite were on display in Beauvechain in November. These fragments came from the collections of the Natural History Museum in Vienna and the IRScNB (Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique), as well as two Belgian private collections. Several manuscripts and newspaper articles from 1863 discussing the fall of the meteorite were also displayed.

More than 1,000 people visited the exposition in just 7 half-days during each weekend of November. Among these people were many direct descendants of the witnesses to the fall. They were surprised to read their names in several ancient reports, and they discovered their forgotten ancestors from as far away as 7 generations. They learned that their ancestors had seen the fall of the meteorite, they burnt fingers by picking up fragments too soon, and that they had sold the pieces some days later to scientists, collectors, and dealers who came to the village in large numbers during December of 1863. The business of meteorites was already well developed at that time - we have not invented anything new!

A very thorough historical analysis was conducted by Jacques Vincent to tell the story 150 years later. At that time, Lincoln was the president of the Union states, and the American Civil War was very intense. This work revealed many new aspects of this fall ... and some well-preserved fragments of the meteorite were found!

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