[meteorite-list] Park Forest Adventure

From: geoking_at_notkin.net <geoking_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:10:05 2004
Message-ID: <v04220801bab892da0764_at_[66.2.44.224]>

Dear Listees:

I returned home late last night from three action-packed days in and
around Park Forest. I spent the days hunting with the original Steve
Arnold and John Sinclair, and the evenings socializing, drinking and
examining Park Forest stones with what seemed like most of the
meteorite world.

Steve, John, and I were all successful and together found a number of
nice small individuals, plus a couple of larger stones and fragments.
That makes seven strewn fields that Steve and I have hunted together,
and John made his first-ever meteorite find (and it was a great one
too!). Congrats John. These small individuals are very attractive and
also very scarce! We put in *many* hours in the cold and wet to
recover them.

We noticed that stones found on Friday April 4 were practically
pristine, but that some picked up the following day (after heavy rain
on Friday night) showed slight to moderate rusting. Not surprisingly,
complete individuals had hardly any rust, while some broken stones
and fragments (particularly of the light-colored variety) did show
some rusting. We dried the wet stones out and the deterioration
appears to have immediately stopped. On Friday, Steve found a superb
completely oriented 99% crusted small bullet-shaped individual
sitting in four inches of water. That stone doesn't have a trace of
rust on it, so if you've heard that pieces picked up a few days after
the fall are all rusting, that is inaccurate.

As has already been well documented here on the List, Saturday night
turned into an amazing impromptu and very animated party at a local
restaurant, and was made up of about twenty prominent collectors and
dealers. We closed the place down, and Steve said the event was
"bigger than Denver." I have good photos which I will post when time
permits.

Hats off to everyone who jumped on a plane (or in a car) and made it
out to Park Forest. Great to see so many of you in the field.

Regards,

Geoff N.
Received on Tue 08 Apr 2003 11:30:22 AM PDT