Who was Harvey Nininger?
Harvey Nininger was an American collector and researcher who, from the 1920s to the 1960s, did more than anyone to establish meteoritics as a science in the United States.
Harvey Harlow Nininger (1887 to 1986) was an American teacher, collector and scientist who devoted his life to meteorites.
Early interest. Nininger was a biology teacher in Kansas when, in 1923, he saw a bright fireball. This sparked a lifelong passion. He began searching for meteorites, travelling across rural America, giving talks and asking farmers to bring him unusual rocks.
Public education. Nininger encouraged ordinary people to look for meteorites and offered to pay for genuine finds. He distributed leaflets and gave hundreds of lectures. As a result, many new meteorites were identified, perhaps several hundred, a large fraction of those known in the United States at the time.
The American Meteorite Museum. In 1946, he opened a museum near Meteor Crater in Arizona, displaying his collection and educating visitors. He later moved it to Sedona.
Research. Nininger studied Meteor Crater extensively, finding tiny metallic spheres in the soil, which he recognised as condensed droplets from the impact. He also studied the Brenham pallasite field in Kansas and many other sites.
Legacy. Nininger co-founded the organisation that became the Meteoritical Society in 1933. He wrote several books for the public. His collection was eventually divided, with large parts going to the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum in London, and to Arizona State University, where it helped found a major research centre.
The mineral niningerite, found in enstatite chondrites, is named after him.