[meteorite-list] Jackpots From The Sky

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:53:37 2004
Message-ID: <200212271630.IAA00925_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/4822933.htm

Jackpots from the sky
BY ANSLEE WILLETT
The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colorado)
December 27, 2002

Tom Stuart searched the ground one recent Saturday, hoping to find pieces
of the sky.

He thought he had a hit when his metal detector squealed. He dropped to his knees
and dug. And dug.

"It's a piece of barbed wire," he said, holding it in his palm. "Fooled ya."

He was looking for an iron meteorite, yards from where two pieces of one were
found in the early 1960s. Fourteen iron meteorites have been found in Colorado
since 1863.

Stuart and about 30 others with the Pikes Peak Adventure League, or PPAL, fanned
out across open land about 10 miles west of Ellicott, Colo., last month. The group
volunteered its time to help the Denver Museum of Nature & Science's meteorite
research team.

"It's a public service for the club to help the museum," said Stuart, of Pueblo West.

The chances of finding an iron meteorite are about the same as winning the lottery.

Nobody was that lucky. Instead, they dug for stuff such as a railroad spike, bullets
and an Indian arrowhead.

A Colorado Springs couple with the group hit the jackpot when they found an iron
meteorite two years ago north of Cotopaxi in Fremont County.

Richard and Sharon Walker didn't learn what it was until this summer. Their nearly
4-1/2-billion-year-old meteorite, the first iron one found since the Ellicott find in
the 1960s, is at the Denver museum for now.

"It's currently being baby-sat. We have visitation rights," Sharon Walker said
before laughing.

Most meteors burn up in the atmosphere and never hit the ground. If they do hit,
they're called meteorites, which help determine the age and composition of the solar
system. About 6 percent of meteorites are made of iron.

Common meteorites can sell for a few dollars a gram and rare ones can go for
hundreds of dollars per gram.

Sandy and Dorothy Kraemer, who own the land that was searched, were told by the
museum a few years ago about the two pieces of meteorite, named the Ellicott
meteorite, that were found more than 30 years ago.

"We're very pleased to encourage science and nature," Sandy Kraemer said, while
watching people search.

The Ellicott site is the only one in Colorado where two pieces of a meteorite have
been found, said Jack Murphy, the Denver museum's curator of geology.

"Usually, you just find one," "If two are found in one place, it's likely more pieces
fell in the area if it broke." he said.

Farmer Floyd Thompson found the pieces, weighing 15 and 20 pounds, about a year
apart. They sat on his back porch for 10 years while he sent out samples, trying to
find out what he'd found.

They were determined in 1973 to be an iron meteorite.

Murphy would like to find Thompson's family.

"I just think his relatives might like to know he has an important place in Colorado's
meteorite history."

---
Anyone with information on Thompson's family can e-mail the museum at
fireball_at_dmns.org. For more information on PPAL, call 473-0330.

Received on Fri 27 Dec 2002 11:30:20 AM PST