the explorers journal - The Explorers Club

he snapped up large quantities of beef jerky) and
collects mainly for money. He goes more on his
gut. Arnold’s discovery in 2005 of the 648.6 kg
(1,430-lb.) Brenham Meteorite makes him legend
among hunters.
Not surprisingly, a big secondary market exists
for space rocks, because of their rarity. Collectors
pay from $100 for small fragments to hundreds of
thousands of dollars for large pieces displayed in
museums. Meteorites from the asteroid belt between
Jupiter and Mars (the most common, and
the ones in Odessa) average a few dollars per
gram, while those from Mars and the Moon (yes,
they can identify origination by chemical composition
and structure) command $1,000-$2,000 per
gram. Prices, as with any collectible, vary with
condition, type, and age (see “Know Your Space
Rocks,” facing page).
There are the celebrity collectors of these
things, too. Musician Sting of The Police was
given a 40-kg (88-lb.) shield-shaped Campo del
Cielo meteorite for his birthday in 2008.
While “stones” by far are the most prevalent
falls (some 90 percent), the majority of finds are
metallics (some 6 percent of falls) because of
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electronic devices like hand-held metal detectors
and ground penetrating radar (GPR), both of
which we have in Odessa. Hunting for metallics
still can be frustrating, though, as we quickly discover.
More often than not, the fruits of our digging
turn out to be nails, bullet shells, bottle caps,
wire—what they call “meteor-wrongs” for obvious
reasons.
Hunting in Odessa is generally safe, with a few
exceptions. Because of the arid climate and sandy
shrub geography, myriad snakes inhabit the area.
Most are nonpoisonous (of the bull variety), so we
take the warning with a grain of salt. Later, though,
I almost step on a diamondback rattler which, with
a good bite, can kill a human sans medical treatment
in under an hour.
The other thing to beware of here in oil country
is pipeline. Sarah Cervera, a graduate student
at the University of Texas El Paso, hauls out the
school’s $300,000 ground-penetrating radar
machine—good at identifying and mapping submerged
metal down to about 5 meters (15 feet).
Our team is excited to have such a sophisticated
piece of equipment at its disposal. But time after
time, after identifying metal, our Bobcat digger
Geoff Notkin and Steve Arnold set off in search of more. Photo by Jim Clash.