[meteorite-list] NP Article, 08-1969 LU Prof. Hunts Kansas Meteorites

From: MARK BOSTICK <thebigcollector_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:18:31 2004
Message-ID: <OE103QVstLE591FpVyQ000052ab_at_hotmail.com>

Paper: The Post Crescent
City: Appleton, Wi
Date: Sunday, August 31, 1969
Page: B1

Finds Kansas Meteorites

LU's Professor Read Is an Extraterrestrial Rockhound

     While astronauts journey to the moon to collect strange rocks, our
earth is being bombarded with rocks that probably once were part of strange
planets.
     Dr. William Reed, a professor of geology at Lawrence University, says
the favorite hypothesis concerning the meteors that shoot through our solar
system is that they are parts of one or more planets that collided or
exploded eons ago. The planet pieces are now part of the "junk cluttering
up our solar system."
     This junk especially thick between Mars and Jupiter, comprises what we
know as the planetoids, or asteroids, Read explained.
     Meteors often enter the earth's atmosphere and, after being "burned"
down by friction, bury into the earth's surface where they become the
objects of hunts by farmers, rock hounds, or geologists, like Read.

On Expedition

     Read just returned from a meteor-hunting expedition to Kansas, with 35
pounds of heavy, rusty-looking meteors.
     Kansas is fertile territory for meteor hunts, Read said, because the
state is unglaciated, and anything other than the native limestone will
likely be a meteorite. Because Wisconsin was heavily glaciated rocks found
throughout most of the state are mixed and a heavy, rusty rock might not
even be noticed.
     Southeastern Wisconsin is like Kansas, however It is not glaciated, and
it shouldn't be hard to locate meteorites there, Read said. Only seven or
eight meteorites have been reported found in Wisconsin, compared with about
90 in Kansas.
     Aproximately one meteorite the size of a golf ball or large lands in
Wisconsin every two or three years, Read estimated, so although the space
specimens don't exactly rain down upon us, they do arrove with some
regularity.
     Farmers plowing their fields are the most apt to find meteorites, Read
said. He encourages any farmer who finds a heavy, rust-colored rock that
reacts slightly to a magnet, to bring them to him to examine.
     Read and a student, Bill Trauba, of Greenville, left for Kansas after a
woman sent Read a curious bit of glassy-appearing rock similar to the kind
formed when a meteorite struck ground in Arizona. Read and Trauba hoped to
discover a new meteorite crater.

Located Lime Kilm

      Laden with shovels and other equipment, the two explorers located a
hole, about six feet in diameter, that was surrounded by the same glassy
material. After three or four days of careful excavation, they found they
had located a pioneer lime kiln, which had evidently generated such heat
that surrounding rocks and dirt were melted into the glassy material hat had
sent them westward.
     Suspecting they might find nothing, Read had prepared a list of other
possible sources of meteors, and they set out to try and buy whatever they
could find.
     The going rate for meteors is about $5 a pound. Read said. They
brought four samples to bring back to Wisconsin for study.
     Meteorites may be either the iron or stone type. Read said. Stony
meteorites are 20 times as common as the iron ones, aren't quite as heavy,
and don't have the rusty color. They all usually contain just enough iron to
attract a small magnet.
     Read has been a meteor and meteorite fancier for about 10 years - ever
since a class in "Problems in Geology" sent him off on a tangent of inquiry
about a particular rock in the Lawrence collection.
     Since then, he's made it a hoby to collect the meteorites, study them,
make preliminary reports, then send them on to others for more complete
analysis. Many are sent to the U.S. National Museum in Washington, D. C.,
he said. He thought the biggest one found in Kansas would be sent to the
Univeristy of California at Los Angeles.


Article includes a photo of Read looking at a rock with the following
caption: An "Oddball" Meteorite was one of the prizes brought back to
Lawrence University by geologist Dr. William Read after a meteor-hunting
expedition to Kansas. The big rock, probably part of a planet that broke
apart eons ago, appears to be a mixture of iron and stone. Like most
meteors, it is heavy and rusty in color. (Post-Cresent Photo)
Received on Thu 27 Feb 2003 01:59:31 PM PST