Winona meteorite "peace and honour are upon its Master!"
This originally lingam (egg)-shaped (as the archaeologists who found the main mass described the form of original meteorite before it disintegrated upon removal) Winona meteorite weighing 24kg was found in a stone cist in September 1928 in the neighborhood of a small group of pre-historic ruins near an ancient Sinagua Indian village (Elden pueblo) about five miles northeast of Winona, in northern Arizona. The village Elden pueblo was inhabited from about 1070 to appr. 1275 A.D by a tribe now refered to as the Sinagua (or the Anasazi Indians?). It is said that during the 200 years or so of the pueblo complex occupancy it grew from a few pit houses to covering several acres and over 60 rooms. The Sinagua buried this extremely rare meteorite must had understood it's very special significance. The way the meteorite was buried in aspecially designed stone sub-floor stone cist (usually found to contain burials)entombing it in a cist hidden below the floor of one of the pueblos suggests that the original pueblo architect most likely considered the extraterrestrial stone a sacred relic - possibly after witnessing its fall from heaven. It is deeply sad that the Winona meteorite is not given the due respect and is not given back completely to the ORIGINAL PLACE by securing it by a wall and probaly a (guarded) monument.
The major, minor and
trace element composition is similar to the silicate inclusions in the IAB-group
iron meteorites. Winonaites are by some thought to origin from a partially
differentiated (and such bigger) asteroid that was disrupted through impact or
collision just as it started to crystallize an iron core and a silicate-rich
crust
Ref.: Brady, L. F. 1928. The Winona meteorite. Am. J. Sci. 18: 477-86.
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meteorite name: |
WINONA |
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meteorite type: |
Winonaite.Primitive achondrite, AWIN | ||
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Locality: |
Coconino County, ,Arizona, USA. | ||
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DATE OF FIND: |
Found 1928 September in a stone ciste. | ||
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total known weight |
24000g. | ||
Main mass: in possession of the finder,
A.J.Townsend
4508g: Flagstaff, North Arizona Museum
1379g: Tucson,
Flandeau Planetarium
990g: Phoenix, Arizona Mining Museum
354g: Cambridge,
Harvard Univ.
324g: New York, American Museum of Nat. Histist.
268g:
London, Nat. Hist. Museum
Graphic: Peter Pilles, USDA Forest Service
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