Jim Greenfield wrote:

I hope that you could estimate its impact point- what if it was a lump
of gold?
Trails are the burning up of the meteor, but if it were inert??
Chemical compound most prevelent (IIRC) is nickel, but why not another
heavy element?
Compare positions of gold fields, add in geological history (formation
of mountains, erosion, continental drift etc)- and see if the pattern
in some cases doesn't hint at the gold being of meteoric
origin...........
welllllll, two things really.
First, it never made the ground, it vanished when still several degrees
above the horizon. Secondly, as well as the burning up of the object the
trail of a meteor is also made up of atmospheric gas that has been ionised
by the violence of the object's passage.