DISCOVERY OF CLOVIS STONY METEORITE, USA

Name: CLOVIS.

The place of fall or discovery: About 12 kin south-southeast of the Santa Fe Railroad Station, Clovis, Curry County, New Mexico, USA; φ = 34°18'N, λ = 103°8.5'W.

Date of fall or discovery: FOUND, in the spring of 1961.

Class and type: STONY, chondrite.

Number of individual specimens: 1.

Total weight: Approximately 283 kg.; the dimensions are approximate­ly 55 x 54 x 60 cm.

Circumstance of the fall or discovery: The meteorite was recovered while plowing the surface material overlying the formation of late tertiary age.. Apparently the meteorite has been fallen so long that. there were no indications of a crater. The plow, which was set to stir the soil to a depth of about 25 cm, broke when it hit the heavy meteorite.  One side of the meteorite is a smooth dome; this face apparently was the leading side. All the other surfa­ces on this stone are covered with fragments which became firmly attached to the meteorite probably by terrestrial weathering. The centers of these fragments found to be unaltered. A considerable amount of ni­ckel iron is included in the ground mass; troilite is also present. The Clovis meteorite could be a piece of one of the Grady meteorites or the Melrose meteorite, now known front Curry County. The Clovis meteorite is now in the collections of the U. S. National Museum (Washington, USA).

Source: Report sent by Dr. E. P. Henderson (Washington, USA) is a letter to E. L. Krirnov, August 22, 1961.