[meteorite-list] Meteorite hunting in the UK...

From: Steve Schoner <steve_schoner_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:22:37 2004
Message-ID: <20030612024743.36505.qmail_at_web12706.mail.yahoo.com>

--- Theodoric_at_AOL.com wrote:
>
> Steve,
>
> <But in the case of stone wall meteorite
> collections, I>
> <would imagine that solid irons, or stony irons
> would>
> <be rare if non existent. These would have stood
> out>
> <and been long since smelted, or used for other
> things>
> <than mere stones for a wall.>
>
> When I met you in 2001 at Tucson, did't you tell
> me a story about a
> meteorite you identified as a kid, in a wall? Out in
> California was it?
>
> -Larry
>
>

Yes, absolutely.

I was 11 years old when in a town just below Yosemite
National Park, there was a rock shop called the
"Uranium Mine" and it was an actual mine going into
the hill side on the road with a parking lot. The
front of it was a shack like structure and to go into
the mine that also served as the entrance.

There were rocks filling every shelf. All sorts of
rocks, fossils, and of course weird florescent uranium
minerals.

What immediately caught my eye was a large mass with
regmaglyphs and a cut face showing the interior. It
was about 35 lbs, and it was fresh.

The person that was the proprietor of the store, an
old man dressed as a '49ner, saw me admiring that
plain looking rock, and he then asked me what I
thought it was.

I told him. "it is a stone meteorite, sir. And it is
fresh. That is it looks like it fell yesterday."

The store manager was amazed, for he told me that I
was the first one that could identify it, out of all
those that had seen it since he acquired it.

I then asked him where he got it.

He pointed out the window, over the creek and to the
mountains beyond. There was a big fireball that
broke up over this part some years ago, and it was
reported that pieces of it fell here and nearby.
Afterwards I went out looking for it, and I found
this, over there on that mountain side.

I was amazed.

Nothing in his store, except that meteorite interested
me. And he asked me questions about meteorites and I
think I amazed him, that I knew so much about them at
11 years of age.

I was amazed, that he found such a beautiful specimen.
  While my parents and my brother were in the store, I
went outside to look at those mountains. And I
wondered about that find and that there might be other
specimens yet to be found on its slopes. Then I
noticed a stone wall on a property across the road.
It was a sold stone wall that was striking as it was
made of petrified wood, and other really nice looking
rocks. I had not seen a stone wall like that, so I
walked across the road to take a closer look. And
what I saw in that wall right next to the gate caught
my attention immediately. I could not believe it....

It was a METEORITE!... the same type that I saw in the
store, but the surface had developed some rust spots
being exposed to the weather. And it too was fresh.

I went to the gate jamb to take a closer look, and on
my knees I examined it closely. The fusion crust was
amazing, and there were some breaks exposing a very
dark interior matrix.

The the home owner came out... "Get away from my
fence, Boy!" he shouted. And I stood up and backed
away.

"But, sir!" I said, "Do you know that this rock here
is a meteorite?"

And he retorted, "I know!" "And I don't what you
touching anything in my wall"

So I left him and his wall and returned to the store,
and said the store owner, "You know that guy next
door, with the stone wall... He has a meteorite, too,
right in his wall."

And I can't remember what the store owner said, other
than the fact that some people went out looking after
the fireball.

I held this story for a long time, and recently a
couple of years ago, I mentioned it to a friend Jeff
Wark in CA.

He actually was so compelled that he went up there to
that little town below Yosemite and found the place
called the Uranium Mine, or what was left of it. They
had widened the road for access to the park, and it
was taken over by the road department. People
remembered it, and the old codger that ran it many
years ago. And the house with the stone wall, it was
once there, too. But in the road widening project the
State had brought it and demolished the stone wall,
the pieces of it bulldozed away.

So, my memory of the place was confirmed, it was or
just out side of Merced (sp), so Jeff Wark said, and
not too far from this place was a trout farm, which I
think is still there.

Too bad no one recovered those meteorites, and I
wonder what happened to them. But I do know this,
that on a hillside just south of Yosemite National
Park there must be quite a few meteorites yet to be
found.

Steve Schoner/AMS

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Received on Wed 11 Jun 2003 10:47:43 PM PDT