Meteorite Hunter: The Search for Siberian Meteorite Craters

by Roy A. Gallant

The "Indiana Jones of Astronomy" takes readers on a fascinating hunt for scientific treasures On the morning of June 30, 1908, a comet nucleus or stony asteroid weighing 100,000 metric tons exploded four miles above the remote Siberian region of Tunguska with a force hundreds of times greater than the blast that destroyed Hiroshima. Eighty-four years later, American astronomer Roy Gallant was invited by the Russian Academy of Sciences to participate in its annual Tunguska Expedition. Gallant was the first American to take part in the Russian investigation of the largest meteorite impact in recorded history. So inspired was he by his experiences at Tunguska that he went on to devote the next eight years of his life to investigating and writing about meteorite impact sites around the globe. In Meteorite Hunter, Roy Gallant takes readers on a fascinating journey to the major meteorite sites of the wild and desolate Russian interior.

Genres: Science, Astronomy

231 pages, Hardcover

First published January 23, 2002

Reviews

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author Roy Gallant travels through Siberia and the Far Eastern sections of Russia (nearly all but one of the meteorite fall sites that he explores are east of the 87° longitude) to visit these locations and in many cases be the first American scientist.

Of course, it starts with Tunguska and the 1908 meteor. Or was it? Current consensus is leaning towards a cometary mass.
On to Sikhote-Alin where a meteorite storm in 1947 left over 100 small craters on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Chinge River/Meteority near the Mongolian border which was likely a prehistoric impact.
Pallas meteor which was found pre-1747 and eventually sledged to Moscow and the Russian Academy of Science.
Tsarev that impacted in 1921 or 1922 just north of the Caspian Sea.
Popihai which is a huge crater that was created approximately 36 million years ago and in the far north.
Finally, Teletskoye which was another meteorite swarm in 1904.

There is a breakdown of the major types of meteorites(bolides or bright or large crater forming body): stony, stony-iron and the iron - and all of these are further broken down.

The book ends with a look at Chicxulub, finding those asteroid/cometary fragments that may - eventually - target the Earth and what can we do at the time of publication (2002). Today (2022) there is a great deal more information and even one instance of humans trying to influence a astronomical body. But against those large, multiple-kilometer extinction-level objects, we can still do nothing - - even if astronomers discover its approach in time.

2022-236

[Scott Kardel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meteorite Hunter may be the only book I have that has a Forward, an Introduction, a Preface AND Acknowledgements all before the main body of the book. That aside, the big mystery is why did I keep this book on my shelves for so long (11 years!!) before I finally decided to read it? I'm not sure why I waited, but I am certainly glad that I finally got around to reading about Roy Gallant's expeditions across Siberia to investigate some of the most important and interesting impact sites on our planet.

While the topic is meteor impact sites, the book is more of a travelog as Gallant and companions trek through the Siberian wilderness, dealing with Russian airlines, hordes of misquotes, and much more. I really enjoyed the book for the science and for the look at traveling through Russia in the 1990s.