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Autores principales: Grèbol-Tomàs, P., Peña-Asensio, E., Trigo-Rodríguez, J. M., Ibáñez-Insa, J.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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Acceso en línea:https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03572
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author Grèbol-Tomàs, P.
Peña-Asensio, E.
Trigo-Rodríguez, J. M.
Ibáñez-Insa, J.
author_facet Grèbol-Tomàs, P.
Peña-Asensio, E.
Trigo-Rodríguez, J. M.
Ibáñez-Insa, J.
contents The meteoritical community widely assumes that the probability of finding two meteorites from different falls laying in close proximity is negligible. However, recent studies have suggested that spatiotemporal coincidences may be critical when associating a meteorite with a witnessed fall. In this work, we estimate the number of accumulated meteorites--those resulting from past falls--that are present in landing regions of new falls, while accounting for the effects of terrestrial weathering. We present a simple, fast-computing model to estimate such probability, validated with a Monte Carlo approach based on dark flight computations from real meteorite-dropping fireball data. Considering meteorite masses higher than 10 g, our results indicate that in regions with minimal weathering, like Antarctica, the probability of encountering a previous meteorite within a new fall strewn field may be as high as 75%. In environments with higher weathering rates, like countryside or urban regions, this probability decreases to <1%. When considering the 30 g Lake Frome 006 meteorite coincidence case, the probability of recovering a non-related meteorite with an age of 3.2 kyr from a 0.7 km^2 search area is 6.9%. In the case of the 1 kg Ischgl meteorite, the probability of coincidence with another fresh meteorite of similar mass is 0.06% assuming a large strewn field of 210 km^2. Applied to the Almahata Sitta case, our model predicts a 11.3% of coincidence with a previous meteorite fall. Our results strongly suggest that isotopic dating is essential before associating any meteorite with a witnessed fall.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_03572
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On the spatiotemporal coincidence of meteorites in recent fall search campaigns
Grèbol-Tomàs, P.
Peña-Asensio, E.
Trigo-Rodríguez, J. M.
Ibáñez-Insa, J.
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
The meteoritical community widely assumes that the probability of finding two meteorites from different falls laying in close proximity is negligible. However, recent studies have suggested that spatiotemporal coincidences may be critical when associating a meteorite with a witnessed fall. In this work, we estimate the number of accumulated meteorites--those resulting from past falls--that are present in landing regions of new falls, while accounting for the effects of terrestrial weathering. We present a simple, fast-computing model to estimate such probability, validated with a Monte Carlo approach based on dark flight computations from real meteorite-dropping fireball data. Considering meteorite masses higher than 10 g, our results indicate that in regions with minimal weathering, like Antarctica, the probability of encountering a previous meteorite within a new fall strewn field may be as high as 75%. In environments with higher weathering rates, like countryside or urban regions, this probability decreases to <1%. When considering the 30 g Lake Frome 006 meteorite coincidence case, the probability of recovering a non-related meteorite with an age of 3.2 kyr from a 0.7 km^2 search area is 6.9%. In the case of the 1 kg Ischgl meteorite, the probability of coincidence with another fresh meteorite of similar mass is 0.06% assuming a large strewn field of 210 km^2. Applied to the Almahata Sitta case, our model predicts a 11.3% of coincidence with a previous meteorite fall. Our results strongly suggest that isotopic dating is essential before associating any meteorite with a witnessed fall.
title On the spatiotemporal coincidence of meteorites in recent fall search campaigns
topic Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03572