Hi Mike
a few answers for you....
Could you tell me the largest meteorite that has been located thus far globally?
Namibia, SW africa .... 60 tonnes its still in the place it fell/discovered too heavy to move
its a nickel/ iron meteorite
How do you know how old they are whether it's AD or BC when it's been flying around up there - carbon dating? This is something that's always puzzled me, how can you tell the age of it when you don't know where its been or come from?
Most meteorites are in the 4 - 4.6 billion years old .... part of the earliest solar system material.
there is a way to timed their arrival on earth ... I need to look back through my university geology study
notes, it has to do with formation of radio isotopes by the bombardment of the rock by gamma rays in space
which stops once it enters the earth's protective atmosphere
( will dig up that info) ok several Q"s here ..... now you will see some of mine have dates associated with them ....
dates are derived by several ways; a).. the fall was witnessed the easiest and most accurate (of course)
b) ... its effects on the surrounding geology and that the ages of the various geological features have
already been worked out.
keep in mind that carbon dating is good only for ~ 6000 years
Is there a specific place on this wonderful planet that seems to have more remnants/rocks than any other and is there a reason for this?
Yes and Yes ..... The Antartic ice sheet is a great place to find meteorites. The have been falling there for
countless millions of years ... buried in the ice and later brought back up to the surface with ongoing ice
movements. The black - dark colour of the meteorites stands out so easily on the white ice.
the first confirmed meteorite from the planet Mars was found in Antartica.
Places like deserts or the geologically stable Australian outback are also good places to look
little to no vegetation light coloured ground rock again makes the dark meteorites stand out.
Impact of a specific number of projectiles over the last million or so years?
ohhh gosh it has dropped off substantially since the early life of the planets. it was early in the solar system's
creationwhen the great meteorite bombardment occurred, when the gravity fields of the various planets
scooped up the masses of loose rock scattered throughout the system.
prob >90% of all the craters seen on the moon today occurred in that early period.
we dont see so many craters on earth for 2 main reasons 1) ... earth's atmosphere burns up many of the incoming rocks ... 2) ... the surface of the earth id geologically VERY active and this has destroyed many of the
craters.
its estimated that ~ 200 tonnes of material falled to earth each day, YES ... DAY. most of that is the dust
material remaining from the burnups in the atmosphere.
there's some info for ya
cheers
Dave N
