[meteorite-list] Pallasite story.
Ruben, I have found both Imilac and Glorieta Mountain pieces, although the Glorieta Mountain pieces I have found weigh a combined less than 20 grams! I have spent thousands of dollars travelling to Glorieta, to find a value of only a couple hundred dollars. Hunting meteorites takes incredible patience, and lots of luck mixed in. When I first started hunting, a friend of mine at Gold Basin was doing much better than I was, and I ask him the secret, just to share soemthing with me so that I could improve my haul of meteorites. He told me that the trick to finding meteorites is to get the coil of your detector over the meteorite! When I found this new pallasite, it was one of the best finds of my life, I honestly think I was more excited than when I found the moon rock. There was no question of what this meteorite was. We have been preparing for months a return to the location to systematically search for more pieces. My hunting partner and I returned to the location, carrying crates of material to build metal-detectors which could be pulled behind the vehicles. Customs was quite interested in the machines, but when told what they were for, they thought it was cool. We hunted for two days, gridding teh area where I found the first piece, back and forth 16 hours per day (night hunting during a full moon in the desert is not a problem). We found nothing in thoe two days! Imagine the boredom and anger at what we thouht was going to be an easy hunt. After two full days of gridding the site of the first piece, we decided to go out more randomly in all directions, to try and hit a second piece. Late in the afternoon, my radio crackled, but I was too far away from Robert to hear him. We have several different radios, so finally my GPS radio came on and I heard Robert say that he had found it. I called back and he told me that he had found more pallasite! It took us some time to fugure out where each other was, but I drove up on a small hill and Robert talked me in. --- Ruben Garcia [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Mike and All, Congratulations!!! You are the man Mike, an impressive find indeed!! I'm not sure if most of the list can fully appreciate how hard it is to find a meteorite, even when you're right in the middle of the strewn field. Finding a pallasite is an awesome feeling. I know that you are one of only a handfull of people that have ever found a Glorieta Mountain Pallasite. How many different pallasites have you personally found? I'm assuming Imilac, Glorieta Mountain and this new one, any others? Ruben Ruben Garcia Phoenix, Arizona http://www.mr-meteorite.com Don't get soaked. Take a quick peek at the forecast with the Yahoo! Search weather shortcut. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/shortcuts/#loc_weather __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Pallasite Story
Hi Michael, and List Congratulations Mike! I love hearing about meteorite hunting success stories. This find and Larry Atkin's Holbrook find are both inspiring to a fellow hunter. Thanks for sharing the information and photos. Michael Murray micro hunter of southwest Colorado __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
[meteorite-list] Pallasite story #2
Sorry for the broken email, I hit the wrong button and it sent before spell check and being finished. Here is the rest of the story. When I arrived at Robert's location, I could see him walking around and small black pallasite pieces laying all over the ground. There were 9 pieces on the surface, and several more under the sand. We could see the sandblasted metal and large olivine crystals glinting in the bright desert sun. We had a little celebration and set up camp at that spot. About four hour later, Robert excitedly yelled into the radio that he found more pieces a quarter mile away. I went over there and sure enough, 5 more pieces, laying in a line about 0.5 meter long embedded in the sandy surface. We hunted for hours more but found nothing else. That night we celebrated with an ice-cold bottle of fine champagne that we had bought in Duty Free. We forgot the glasses though, and I drank mine from a coffee mug, Robert drank his from an empty noodle cup! Even with the uncivilized utensils, that champagne was the taste of victory and success. We talked all night and found it difficult to sleep, wondering just how many kilos of pallasite we would find the next day. We were having difficulty deciding how we would divide up the small amount of material that Robert had found that day (less than 1 kilogram), who would get which piece etc, since I had found nothing. The next day however, would turn out to be mine. We had to go for fuel but returned late in the afternoon, where we started searching even before returning to camp. I decided to go check on the camp when to my amazement, about 30 meters from my tent, I drove up on a patch of pallasite pieces, 8 specimens on the surface totalling about 500 grams. We had been sleeping so close to those meteorites. Anyone who knows about hunting in the desert knows that lighting is everything. You can miss a large meteorite very close to you if you are looking into the sun, but put the sun and your back and it is hard to miss even a small meteorite in the sand. Later that evening, I found two more pieces visually, then after sunset, while gridding, I heard a scream on the detector being pulled behind the truck. I got out, saw nothing on the ground, and pulled out my Goldmaster for a spot check. As I swung the coil, I got a large signal so I called Robert over. We dug up about a 100 gram pallasite from about 3 cm under the soil. I swung again and heard nothing so I packed up the detector and continued driving. Robert immediately called me back and said that I had not found all of the meteorite, in my excitment to hunt I broke the cardinal rule, I did not fully check the hole. Robert got multiple meteorite signals only inches from where I had found the first one. We dug up more than 10 pieces from that little area. Later that night, around 10 pm, I got a large signal on the detector, only about 1 meter from a place where Robert had been pivoting the car on for hours during gridding. Unfortunately for him, he kept turning on the same point, rather than expanding out the turn. I cut accross that spot and found one of the most beautuful Pallasite pieces I have ever seen, weighong 216 grams, shaped like a Klingon bird of Prey spaceship, with an olivine measuring over 40 mm long! He had missed it time and time again by less than three feet. That specimen turned out to be the last one we would find. We gridded for almost two weeks after that, periodicly hunting meteorites elsewhere only to return to the pallasite strewnfield. We never found another piece, even though there is hardly a speck of sand that hadnt been driven over time and time again. The meteorites seems to be a very small fall. As you can find on the Meteoritical Bulletin, there are just over 50 pallasites known (over 70 listed but that includes many paired Antarctica pieces). So there are the same amount of pallasites as there are Lunar and Martian meteorites. That shows you how rare they are, so finding that 180 gram first piece of this pallasite was one of the luckiest days of my life, it is a feeling that can't be described. I will work on photos now, so expect to see an expanded page soon. Michael Farmer __ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Re: [meteorite-list] Pallasite story #2
Yes, that is the question, but this desert is very easy to search, and since virtually all of it was found on the surface, I am confident that there is not likely much more. We searched many miles in every direction. One never knows, but three weeks of 14 hour days of systematic searching makes me think that there is not a lot of this meteorite to be found. the fact that it is more than 10,000 miles away makes it a little hard to hunt on weekends! Michael Farmer PS, the sales webpages will be listed in the next 30 minutes or so. --- Mike Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey Mike congratulations! Sounds like a very sparse strewn field. Do you think that is the end of it or did you just look at a small burp and there is more down range to find? Never can be sure with a pallasite, it could have come in like Peekskill and all you found was a small pop or spark that dropped a few fragments. There could be a lot more down range somewhere. The only problem is which way do you look? Any way congratulations. On 3/17/07, Michael Farmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry for the broken email, I hit the wrong button and it sent before spell check and being finished. Here is the rest of the story. When I arrived at Robert's location, I could see him walking around and small black pallasite pieces laying all over the ground. There were 9 pieces on the surface, and several more under the sand. We could see the sandblasted metal and large olivine crystals glinting in the bright desert sun. We had a little celebration and set up camp at that spot. About four hour later, Robert excitedly yelled into the radio that he found more pieces a quarter mile away. I went over there and sure enough, 5 more pieces, laying in a line about 0.5 meter long embedded in the sandy surface. We hunted for hours more but found nothing else. That night we celebrated with an ice-cold bottle of fine champagne that we had bought in Duty Free. We forgot the glasses though, and I drank mine from a coffee mug, Robert drank his from an empty noodle cup! Even with the uncivilized utensils, that champagne was the taste of victory and success. We talked all night and found it difficult to sleep, wondering just how many kilos of pallasite we would find the next day. We were having difficulty deciding how we would divide up the small amount of material that Robert had found that day (less than 1 kilogram), who would get which piece etc, since I had found nothing. The next day however, would turn out to be mine. We had to go for fuel but returned late in the afternoon, where we started searching even before returning to camp. I decided to go check on the camp when to my amazement, about 30 meters from my tent, I drove up on a patch of pallasite pieces, 8 specimens on the surface totalling about 500 grams. We had been sleeping so close to those meteorites. Anyone who knows about hunting in the desert knows that lighting is everything. You can miss a large meteorite very close to you if you are looking into the sun, but put the sun and your back and it is hard to miss even a small meteorite in the sand. Later that evening, I found two more pieces visually, then after sunset, while gridding, I heard a scream on the detector being pulled behind the truck. I got out, saw nothing on the ground, and pulled out my Goldmaster for a spot check. As I swung the coil, I got a large signal so I called Robert over. We dug up about a 100 gram pallasite from about 3 cm under the soil. I swung again and heard nothing so I packed up the detector and continued driving. Robert immediately called me back and said that I had not found all of the meteorite, in my excitment to hunt I broke the cardinal rule, I did not fully check the hole. Robert got multiple meteorite signals only inches from where I had found the first one. We dug up more than 10 pieces from that little area. Later that night, around 10 pm, I got a large signal on the detector, only about 1 meter from a place where Robert had been pivoting the car on for hours during gridding. Unfortunately for him, he kept turning on the same point, rather than expanding out the turn. I cut accross that spot and found one of the most beautuful Pallasite pieces I have ever seen, weighong 216 grams, shaped like a Klingon bird of Prey spaceship, with an olivine measuring over 40 mm long! He had missed it time and time again by less than three feet. That specimen turned out to be the last one we would find. We gridded for almost two weeks after that, periodicly hunting meteorites elsewhere only to return to the pallasite strewnfield. We never found another piece, even though there is hardly a speck of sand that hadnt been driven over time and time again. The meteorites seems to be a very small fall. As you can find
