[meteorite-list] Barringer Meteor $$$$

From: Steve Schoner <steve_schoner_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:25:36 2004
Message-ID: <20030508045253.87434.qmail_at_web12706.mail.yahoo.com>

Actually the train loads of irons story is probably
apocryphal.

The time that train loads of collections were made,
according to the story was during the time of
Holsinger and before. The irons, if they were
collected for smelting, were found on the surface.
And can you imagine what that place must have been
like? Holsinger mapped in a slipshod fashion in 1909
the finds that he and his team made around the crater.
 When I attempted to do a detailed map using GPS for
locations for 20 square miles in select sections
around the crater, the first place that was assigned
to me was several state sections in the eastern part
of Buffalo Range. It was very, very slim with regards
to meteorites and the largest one that I found there
was 470 grams. Many were very small, like shrapnel,
which was strange being that the distance from the rim
of the crater was over 5 miles. The fragments were
seen by Drs. Shoemaker, Roddy and Wasson. Dr. Wasson
currently has the fragments that I found.

The distribution of these finds in those sections were
roughly consistent with what Holsinger reported in
1909, and I found that very few of any significant
size were found there by me or previously by
Holsinger.

The project that I was involved in was killed by
Bar-T-Bar aka Meteor Crater Enterprises. They
stonewalled me for years and refused to allow me or
others related to my project to search their sections.
 I met every demand; every condition. In their
demands for University backing; first UCLA, I even had
the late Dr Roddy, and Dr. Shoemaker on my side in
this project. They supported it to no avail, and
Meteor Crater Enterprises, aka Bar-T-Bar ranch refused
to allow a search of their holdings. They even went
so far as to dissuade members of Flying M Ranch, after
they heard that Flying M had given me permission under
guidance of UCLA's Dr. Wasson to search their
holdings. It was enough pressure to cause Flying M to
withdraw support for the project, just as I was
getting ready to begin my initial search.

In all of this I submitting all of my finds made at
Buffalo Range with GPS coordinates to UCLA, and even
agreed to opened up my private collection for
inspections, just to show them that I did not "poach"
any of my finds from their lands of interest.

Every demand I met, and they still refused. Thus I
tried to get around the hoops and demands that they
threw at me for ten years.

"Holsinger did it already" was their standard reply.

And where are Holsinger's meteorites?

My aim in the project-- Properly cataloged CD
meteorites with numbers and exact GPS locations, so
that researchers today and in the future would have a
collection of meteoritical material from every
direction around the crater. The specific aim of my
project was to find the "Type III" irons that Dr.
Nininger mentioned, and to determine if this type was
only to be found on one particular sector of the lands
arround the crater. So different Type III irons are
there is question as to wheater they relate to normal
Canyon Diablo irons at all. Finding a distribution
field for this iron would be helpful in resolving the
question one way or the other. I spoke with Nininger
about this possibility and he thought that further
research needed to be done on the Type III's. I had a
slice of one of these "Type III" irons which I years
ago sold to Dr. Wasson at UCLA.

(Best not mention Dr. Nininger's name there at Meteor
Crater... for they consider him a thief, or a
"poacher." They give him no regard at all when it
comes to the significant work that he did there for
the years that he lived in that now dilapidated museum
located on the road leading in to the Crater property)

And I was also interested in determining if there
was a tie between the Winona Meteorite and the
impactor that created the crater. In fact, over 25
years earlier, I had found a very large piece of oxide
that was significantly different from other pieces of
oxide that I had seen. I was very impressed with the
green streaks over its surface and its odd dark tan
matrix. I left a 15 to 20 lb chunk of it where I had
found it, not interested in mere oxide.

When I saw the ten pounds of Winona currently
preserved in the original burial cyst at the Museum of
Northern Arizona... I was transfixed by its
appearance... IT WAS EXACTLY LIKE THE MATERIAL THAT I
HAD FOUND OVER 25 YEARS PREVIOUS NEAR METEOR CRATER!

And I even said so to Dr. Wasson who was with me at
the time. I was very excited about this possibility
and we discussed it at the time.

I am convinced that Winona is related to Meteor
Crater, and one of the aims of my research was to find
pieces of it, a material that is so un-remarkable that
it is most likely discarded as oxide. Except for the
green Ni stains it is even less impressive than normal
meteor crater oxide.

In a nutshell these were the broad aims of my research
project, and I met the conditions set by Meteor Crater
Enterprises, aka Bar-T-Bar Ranch.

"Holsinger did it already" they say...

Then where are the meteorites he recovered?

Probably wound up with those smelted in El Paso, and
the "data", crude as it is, put on a slipshod map.

And this is my opinion on the matter... As far as
further Meteor Crater meteorite research will be
allowed to go. I am too old to do my project now, and
my health is now too fragile to endure the task which
would have taken my 10 years to complete.

And as for the meteorites that they would deny me in
my project, and all of these would have gone to
institutions, ASU and UCLA-- They are still being
"poached" from those lands...

I see them in rock shops along I-40, and some are 10
to 30 lbs... freshly dug.

So, money is still being made at Meteor Crater, in
high fees, and on freshly dug iron meteorites dug up
by persons unknown; and scientific data is being lost
as these are plundered from the ground with no
documented locations noted or provided.

Steve Schoner
http://www.geocities.com/meteorite_identification
http://www.geocities.com/american_meteorite_survey

P. S.

I had to get this out. It has bugged me for years.
Time is now very important to me after what I have
experienced. And though I cannot embark on this
project due to my current health issues, maybe there
is someone out there, backed by a university that can
proceed in the basic objectives of this project. I
will PM the broad objectives and the methods to all
that might be interested, or think they have influnece
out there.

(If anyone does).

My opinion...

Meteor Crater should be owned by the people of the
United States, and managed by the National Park
Service. The mining claim is invalid; there is no
mineable meteorite resource in or under the southern
rim, and the only thing being mined are the pockets of
those now paying to see it.





--- Tom aka James Knudson <knudson911_at_frontiernet.net>
wrote:
> Mike and list, I read that somewhere. It was before
> barringer ever showed
> up. It was in the cowboy days and they came and
> hauled wagon after wagon
> away for smelting.
> Thanks, Tom
> The proudest member of the IMCA 6168
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Michael L Blood <mlblood_at_cox.net>
> To: Steve Schoner <steve_schoner_at_yahoo.com>;
> <StarHarvest_at_aol.com>;
> <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2003 6:13 PM
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Barringer Meteor $$$$
>
>
> > Hi Steve & all,
> > Not to dispute ANY of this, but I have
> heard TONS AND TONS of
> > meteorites were, in fact, taken from the area and
> transported via
> > the rail roads to smelters at some incredibly low
> price - something
> > like 9 cents per TON! While it never came close
> to the "production"
> > hoped for, tons upon tons of Canyon Diablos were
> smelted down.
> > Anyone else heard this?
> > Michael
> >


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Received on Thu 08 May 2003 12:52:53 AM PDT