A STUDY ON THE NEW CONCORD METEORITE: MAPPING FRAGMENTS FROM THE 1860 FALL USING PROPERTY DATA

The New Concord Meteorite fall of May 1st, 1860, was witnessed by dozens of people across West Virginia (then Virginia) and Ohio. Locals were startled by the loud sound of the meteor entering the earth’s atmosphere shortly before 1:00pm. Within minutes of the fall, various fragments from the meteorite were recovered throughout Guernsey and Muskingum County, Ohio. These fragments vary in size, the smallest being only half a pound, whereas the largest weighs 103 pounds. This 103-pound fragment, housed in the Edwy R. Brown Petroleum Engineering Building on the Marietta College campus, is believed to be the main mass of the meteorite from which the other fragments originated. This L6 ordinary chondrite scattered over 30 fragments across southeast Ohio. Through a detailed review of the literature, along with cross-referencing property maps and historical atlases, we mapped 25 of the over 30 known meteorite fragments. The purpose of this map is to aid in our understanding the trajectory of the New Concord Meteorite fall and where more fragments might be located.

All mapping was done using ArcGIS Pro by georeferencing property data from historical atlases of Guernsey County, Ohio from 1855 and 1870. Point data for individual fragments was then placed within the corresponding property lines, according to their description in the literature, then symbolized by size gradient by mass of fragment in pounds. This map was later converted into a web application accessible to the public via ArcGIS Online. In plotting the relative locations of 25 of these fragments, we can observe a trend connecting the mass of the fragment and its locality. The more massive fragments fell furthest to the northwest, the direction of the meteorite fall, whereas smaller fragments are found further to the southeast along the meteor’s path. Using this map, future studies may be able to locate new fragments of various masses following the projected trajectory. Through the course of this literature review, it was discovered that modern petrographic analysis of the New Concord Meteorite had not be conducted and thus completing such studies may be warranted.