- Sikhote Alin Meteorites from the TowerCrystals internet collection
"The morning of February 12, 1947...was clear over the Sikhote-Alin Mountains of eastern Siberia. These mountains lie in Siberia's Maritime Province on a narrow strip of land wedged between the Sea of Japan to the east and China to the west."...at 10:38A.M. , a flaming fireball as large as the sun suddenly appeared in the cloudless sky. It was traveling from north to south and casting shadows and changing colors with red dominating, especially toward the end of the flight. Loggers that were close by saw it split into several pieces before crashing beyond the trees with a huge exposion and a sound of tremendous "rolling thunder". The shock wave was felt 100 miles away, breaking windows along the way! The pieces landed within a 1.2 mile area as the main mass breakup occured only 3.6 miles above the Earth.
Geologists landed 7 miles away on February 21st, to begin to explore the region and locate the site. After 3 days of searching, they came upon the site filled with fragments of bedrock hurled out by the meteorite. Snapped branches were strewn into the snow and sand and clay were mixed into the snow. They counted 33 craters. Later, 122 craters and pits were found in total, with the largest being 85 feet across and nearly 20 feet deep!" There are two types of Sikhote-alin meteorites --- sharp, jagged shrapnel type specimens and the more beautiful individuals covered in regmaglypts. Regmaglypts are the "thumbprint" marks caused by the burning of the meteorite into a molten state as it entered the atmosphere.
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Sikhote Alin Meteorites
