[meteorite-list] Meteor Crater Guide(?)

From: Dave Andrews <dandre10_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:55:47 2004
Message-ID: <3C46872E.8A2A76EB_at_cybertrails.com>

Impactika_at_aol.com wrote:

> I spent this last weekend at a small local mineral show, selling a few
> meteorites, and answering a lot of questions.
>
> A gentleman came and told me this:
> He is a teacher and took his family to Meteor Crater last summer.
> There were quite a few visitors, and someone asked the guide on duty:
> " Are meteorites radioactive?" The guide answered without hesitation:
> " Yes, most of them are." Then someone else asked "How about the
> meteorites in the gift shop?" Again he answered "Most of those are
> radioactive too."
> This surprised him so he wanted to verify and asked me, and I did my
> best to explain that No! They are not radioactive! I think I
> convinced him.
>

Hi Anne,
A couple of years ago, Rob Elliott, his son Jamie, John Gwilliam and
myself were doing one of our traditional Holbrook hunts and decided to
take an afternoon off and show the Bagpipe Boys the Meteor Crater.
While in the lobby, they have I think what was about a 1400 lb. specimen
on display. We asked the guide (just to be wise-arses), what he thought
something that large would be worth? He replied that "it is worth it's
weight in gold!" We all had a little chuckle over that one. My
thinking is that they just hire these guys off the street, give them a
very basic and quick education, and pay them a little more than minimum
wage for their services. They'll probably just tell you anything off
the top of their heads if they don't know for sure.

As far as the radiation goes, I'm sure there is a small trace, but
negligible. I work at a coal fired power plant using heavy equipment on
various coal piles. They tell me that the coal puts out a considerable
amount of radiation, but probably everything does to a certain extent.
It probably just depends on one's defintion of "radiation". I would
think that a CD meteorite would register so low that it should be
considered nil though.

We might return there for a visit next month and put out a "feeler" for
the guide(s) and try to set the matter straight.

Thanks for the interesting post and we'll see what we can do.

Dave
Received on Thu 17 Jan 2002 03:11:26 AM PST