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Re: mother of all rock piles

Hello List, and Vern
Interesting thoughts!  Andrew Scree at Penn State is working on a similar situation.  He is looking for ancient meteorites in coal mining opperations buy looking at what is snatched up off the conveyors by their huge electro magnets which are set up to screen "tramp iron" ( lunch boxes, wrenches, drilling rod fragments and etc)  Perhaps , a surplus tramp iron screener could be set up,  if you could negotiate its placement.  It might be a great beet byproduct and excellant tax deduction if you were to get a university to sponsor it. Just and idea I am passing along!

Regards,
Elton Jones

v-nord@excite.com wrote:
> 
> Hi everyone,  Just an idea on where to look for meteorites.
> First some information about agriculture, expecially root crops.  1. Root
> crops, such as sugar beets, are grown in areas which have few natural Earth
> rocks. For example Glacial Lake Agassiz, in MN and ND  2. The machinery
> which harvests these crops don't know the difference between a tuber and a
> rock.  3. At some point in the processing, rocks are seperated from the
> tubers.
>   My impression is that these rock piles should be meteorite rich.  Enriched
> in meteorites, if you will.
>   Knowing this, I got permission, through a friend of a friend, to look at
> Crystal Sugar's rock pile at Moorhead MN.
> They told me that their plant processes the beets from about 900 square
> miles.  Quite a big area!  And yes rocks do come out of the plant, through a
> conveyer(spelling) belt, at the rate of several every few minutes.   But
> here's the problem; because of environmental laws, the particulars I'm not
> familiar with, they mix these rocks with the dirt which they wash from the
> beets, and haul them to a solid waste dump, about a mile away.  I doubt if
> any amout of talk would get them to keep these rocks seperate from the dirt.
> It's possible that they might sell these rocks as 'rip-rap', you know, the
> rocks they put around bridges and the like, to keep the soil from washing
> away, because as you may know Moorhead is in the middle of Glacial Lake
> Agassiz, and rocks are scarce.
>   Please, don't pester the American Crystal Sugar company in Moorhead or in
> Renville.  The later of which, processes the beets differently; they add
> roasted limestone rocks to the waste and I'm sure they look like fusion
> crusts.  Anyway, this proves that different tuber processing plants handle
> their 'waste' differently.  (Nice folks, though)
>   I'm giving you this idea because, I can't visit all the plants which might
> be interesting, and perhaps if it works for someone, I'd like to hear about
> it.  ( I wouldn't turn down a sample either)
>   You could try: potato or carrot or onion or ? operations.
>   I wouldn't expect to find a hundred pounder, though.
>   Another little problem is that farmers outside of lake sediments also grow
> sugar beets, on soil developed upon till, kind of rich in Earth rocks.
>   Vern
> 
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