THE FREQUENCY OF METEORITE FALLS - COMMENTS ON 2 CONFLICTING SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM

Recent estimates of the current rate of meteorite falls have been derived from camera network observations and from the statistics of the recovery of small fragments in Roosevelt County, New Mexico. The results are discordant. The integrated sky coverage for the camera data is an order of magnitude greater than the long exposure over small areas in New Mexico, yet the number of inferred events is comparable. We examine potential problems and find no effects other than random ones to bias the camera data. New data on the total number of suitable fireballs indicate that the flux from the camera network is already close to the upper limit imposed by the count of over 700 fireballs. By contrast, the calibration of the decay time for small fragments in New Mexico appears insecure and could account for a factor-of-three discrepancy. The large area of a typical strewn field relative to the small search areas is also a serious problem that remains uncalibrated. There are problems with the application of either the camera results or the New Mexico data to the statistics of recoveries in Antarctica since the Antarctic search areas are not free from the strewn-field problem. Since there is no evidence for a substantial change in the infall rate in intervals less than the ages of the collecting surfaces, we believe the camera network flux data remain the best estimate for the arrival rate of small meteorites on Earth.