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Mining for Meteorites - Part 12 of 12

KRAJICK KEVIN (1999) Mining for Meteorites
(Smithsonian, March 1999, pp. 90 -100):

That is the problem with meteorites. What you see is what you happen to
get. A few weeks after the Portales fall, I went into the desert with
David Kring, the University of Arizona meteoriticist. He was looking for
another missing meteorite, the possible remains of a fireball seen a few
days before the Portales event. Kring had concentric circles drawn on a
map southwest of Casa Grande, Arizona, where he figured it went down. We
walked grids for hours, peering at the bare soil and shoving candidate
rocks with our feet to chase away scorpions. The rocks we picked up did
burn our hands, but of course this was because of the heat of the day,
105 degrees F. Toward the end, we had covered some fraction of 1 percent
of Kring’s map. I then spied an unusually black, shiny stone with an
irregular, meteorite-like shape. I eagerly bent down. It was extremely
light, not heavy like a meteorite, and it began to crumble in my hand.
It was the dropping of an animal who had apparently eaten a great many
ants for breakfast.

Kevin Krajick is writing a book about diamonds - which sometimes arrive
inside meteorites. Will van Overbeek is based in Texas.


------------------ snip ------------------


Well, that's all folks ! I hope you liked it or even enjoyed it as much
as I did.


Best wishes from Germany,

Bernd

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