FALL OF THE PATORA, INDIA, STONY METEORITE

Name: PATORA

Place of fall: A large individual fell in the outskirts of Patora village, and a smaller stone in the vicinity of Sendar village, located about 1 mile west of Patora village. Both villages are in Gariaband Tahsil, Raipur District, Madhya Pradesh, India.

20^°56'13"N, 82^°3'0"E (Patora village).

Date of fall: October 20, 1969, at about 11 a.m.

Class and type: Stone. Olivine-bronzite chondrite (H6).

Number of individual specimens: 2

Total weight: 4.4 kg (about 4 kg and 375 g)

Circumstances of fall: Several persons of Patora and the nearby villages heard the machine-gun-like sound and saw a bright object moving fast in the sky. The Patora meteorite was collected by a police constable named Bhikarilal who had come to the village to make security arrangements for the Dussehra festival on that day. The small stone was presumably collected by people of the Sendar village who were coming to Patora to participate in the festival and handed over the meteorite to Mr. Bhikarilal. On October 21, 1969, Mr. Bhikarilal returned to Rajim (police headquarters) via Fingeshwar village, reported the event and deposited both pieces of the meteorite. This report is based on a personal interview Dr. Nayak held with Mr. Bhikarilal at the Rajim Police Station in April, 1971.

Sources: Dr. V. K. Nayak, Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, University of Saugar, Saugar (M.P.), India. A. L. Graham and V. K. Nayak. 1974. The Patora Meteorite, an H6 Fall. Submitted to Meteoritics.