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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 52 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.
meteorites from top: a Sikhote-Alin, which fell over Siberia in 1947; interior of a Seymchan pallasite found in Russia in 1967; and a Franconia stone found in Arizona in 2004. Photos by Suzanne Morrison and Geoff Notkin © Aerolite meteorites. unearths rusted cans (some riddled with bullet holes), pipe fittings—even working gas pipelines which, had we punctured them, could have had us playing the role of meteorites in reverse. After a few days of major disappointment with our electronic equipment, good old luck and the sharp eyes of Arnold turn out to be our greatest asset. While driving on an unpaved access back road, southwest of the big crater, he spies something and asks the driver to stop the truck. Everyone laughs, thinking Arnold is hallucinating out of frustration. Sure enough, though, once we get out we see telltale reddish-black stones, pitted with the typical rusted Odessa texture, right there, in the roadbed! Some aren’t even buried. Shovel-picks materialize from the back of the truck, and digging up the road quickly commences. Eventually we find more than 27 kg (60 lbs.), and all of it attracts the test magnet, another indication it is the real thing. Notkin’s theory is that the roadbed rock, mined at a quarry nearby, contained the samples, but workers spread them out on the roadbed decades ago not knowing what they were. Later that week, the dig results are taken to be formally analyzed by Laurence Garvie at Arizona State University and Arthur Ehlmann, curator of the Oscar E. Monnig Meteorite Collection in Dallas. Verdict The samples, indeed, are Odessa meteorites (a coarse octahedrite composed of 90 percent iron, 7 percent nickel, 1 percent cobalt, with trace metals mixed in). As per the agreement we donate our find, but Rodman lets us keep a few small samples. A few weeks later, I had drinks with Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin and his wife, Lois. Aldrin told me once that none of the Apollo astronauts were given personal Moon rocks despite the fact that more than 360 kg (800 lbs.) were hauled back to Earth on the Apollo missions. So I offered him one of my meager “samples” from Odessa. He inspected it quizzically, asked if I knew about the Tunguska explosion over Siberia (I did), pocketed the rock and thanked me with a big smile. Later when I told my story to Pitt, the New York collector, he laughed. “Do you know how many of my friends have given Buzz meteorites—really NICE ones” I let that sink in for a minute, then had to smile myself. The moonwalker is as gracious as he is a true American hero. (For more on Notkin and Arnold, visit www. meteoritemen.com.) K n o w Y o u r S p a c e R o c k s ! Meteorites come in three basic flavors: metallics, stony-irons, and stones. Within these categories are several substrata, but here are the basics: Me ta l l ics · less than 6% of falls, but majority of finds · 90% iron, 7% nickel, with trace elements · strongest attraction to magnets · easily found with metal detectors and by sight · remnants from core of asteroids · find sites: Sikhote-Alin (Siberia); Odessa (Texas); Campo del Cielo (Argentina); Canyon Diablo (Arizona) S t on y- Irons · rarest, with less than 3% of falls · attracted to magnets (roughly 50% iron/nickel) · beautiful interiors (pallasite substrata contain olivine crystals) · remnants from mantle of asteroids · find sites: Atacama Desert (Chile); Brenham (Kansas) S t ones · more than 90% of falls but smaller number of finds · hard to identify because resemble terrestrial rocks · weak attraction to magnets (up to 23% iron/nickel) · remnants from surface of asteroids and planets · Mars and Moon meteorites in this category · find sites: African deserts, Antarctica, Australia, Gold Basin (Arizona), Buzzard Coulee (Canada)
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