Hello Folks,
It's been quite a while since I've posted, I guess it's time to step up to the plate!
I wanted to let you all know that my brother Rich and I will be participating in the Tucson Show again this year. I'll be there from Jan 30 until Feb. 8th. My brother is going to be there through the 14th of Feb. We will have our 451 gram (originally 638 gram) Park Forest on display and for sale. It can be seen on page 25 of the July 2003 issue of "Sky and Telescope" magazine, and it is center stage on the "Park Forest Meteorite" poster made by the Tomaselli's, which is available in "Meteorite" magazine. I am going to include it in Michael Bloods auction if I haven't waited too long.
We'll also have a few other meteorites for sale as well.
You won't find us in the meteorite corridor however, as that is not what we are really there for. We can be found at the "La Quinta Inn" ( formerly the Holiday Inn Express) room 133, at I-10 and Starr Pass Blvd. To visit us you must pass over to the other side so to speak, and visit the metaphysical hotel!
How we ended up there is a long story, but it is a meteorite hunting story. A meteorite hunting story gone awry! Some of you know about us, some know the story, but for the rest, in a nut shell;
After about 30+ authentic meteorite finds, and several years of small time collecting and endless museum visits, I followed up on a great meteorite lead. Sept. 9, 2001, I went to a 5 acre farm where I was told a witnessed fall, and recovery had occurred a long time ago. The rock was kept in the house for a number of years and later lost after the old folks passed on.
Within about an hour and a half of hunting I recovered a stone that fit the bill, setting under an old apple tree next to where the old house had once stood many years ago. It was dark, strongly attracted to a magnet, and when I struck it with a file, bright shiny metal was visible in a dark green, stone matrix. Of course all the hairs on my body stood straight on end! I quickly guessed the stone at 20 + pounds ... wow!
Then we joined the circus... I mean, then we began trying to have the stone identified. This is no easy feat for a common electrician and a carpet installer let me tell you! Since all my previous finds were already known falls I had no experience in classification procedures, (and apparently still don't). We started at our local institute where the geologist is an acquaintance of mine. He decided we should take it up to Michigan State so we did. The Dr. there gave me a phone # to a Dr. at Purdue, where I later had the privilege to meet some outstanding Dr.'s in the field, like Brother Guy! What an honor.. anyway, they decided it needed to go to the US Dept. of Energy for Al 26 testing, at the same time we had mailed a small specimen to the Smithsonian in DC It disappeared at the post office due to Anthrax, it was incinerated!
The U. S. D. O. E. came back with a heartbreaking conclusion, the good Dr. said that he was so certain it was a meteorite that he tested it for 100 times less Al-26 than he would expect to find in a normal meteorite, and mine had none. "Therefore it is not a meteorite." When I asked him what it was he said he "had no idea," "but there are a few places on Earth where nickel iron bearing rocks can be found." I later found evidence to suggest that a stone high in Mg is not suitable for the Al-26 analyses, this one is 6% Mg, possibly too high for an accurate conclusion. I later had it argon dated at Univ. of Michigan. It was determined to be 45 ma if terrestrial, 75 ma if extra terrestrial. The Dr. that did the test was confounded, he expected it to be 4.5 billion, or less than 100 years if an artifact. He didn't think for a minute it could be an Earth rock.
Let's call this Part One, I'll tell some more of the story soon. It will be fun, complete with a lying, stealing dealer, disappearing specimens, suspicious goings on at some prominent establishments, The Elusive Thin Section, all sorts of good stuff.
See, this is no ordinary chondrite, it's not ordinary anything! It doesn't match any known rock, terrestrial or otherwise. I have tried to prove that it is slag, I have tried to prove that it is terrestrial, and I have tried to prove that it is a meteorite, and I have had no luck with any of them. This thing has been looked at by many experts and remains nameless. I am not 100% sure what it is. I would give nearly anything to have it written up and classified as something.
The reason we are at the La Quinta Inn is because of the Cr spinel crystals that reside inside the stone. They are little pyramids with a sphere locked in the framework of the crystals. The crystal people think they are special, and who am I to argue? When you see them you will understand. After more than two years of research I haven't yet found a single mention of this crystal form anywhere. Apparently it is in this one stone only, hard to believe.
Considering the circumstances by which I came into possession of this rock, the fact that it is not glaciated like all the local rocks, it has visible metal, and is predominantly made of pyroxene and chrome spinel, and has an apparent one of a kind micro crystal dominating the matrix, I have to conclude that it is probably a meteorite, or even rarer yet, a cr, ni, fe, bearing Earth rock that mimics a basalt type meteorite. Of course I could be all wrong and someone could show me a big pile of it tomorrow. It's possible, but I have my doubts that will happen.
Open your mind and check out my "Webshots" site, it contains several albums of pic's. Most are of the stone that is in question, including thin section shots with incidental light and polarized light. (The Polarized pictures are compliments of Mike Shaw, who would be happy to take photo's for anyone with a thin section.) You will also find some interesting micro shots of Mt. Tazerzait, Park Forest, and Campo Del Cielo. I apologize in advance for some of the poor resolution in some of the images.
http://community.webshots.com/user/microman108
See Y'all in Tucson!
Larry
