[meteorite-list] New Lucerne discovery -- historical info first

From: Matson, Robert <ROBERT.D.MATSON_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Jan 5 18:12:27 2005
Message-ID: <AF564D2B9D91D411B9FE00508BF1C86904EE62D2_at_US-Torrance.mail.saic.com>

Hi All,

Last year there was a lot of talk about people leaving the list
due to disgust, boredom, etc. (Imagine if Meteorite Magazine
was nothing but advertisements and nasty Letters to the Editor
instead of the fine publication that it is?) This list is only
as good as the time, effort, content and civility that people
put into it. Starting a new list is just a cop-out; if a bunch
of drug dealers moved into your neighborhood, would you throw
in the towel and move? No. You'd band together with your
neighbors and take back the neighborhood.

This very strategy was suggested here last year -- I forget by
whom (Bernd?). Since this list is unmoderated, the best approach
is to ignore the abusers and attempt to dillute the flame wars
and off-topic posts by adding *content*.

Some of the most interesting stories are the ones that are
rarely told here -- meteorite hunting stories. Instead, these
tend to be revealed slowly by word of mouth due to the need
for secrecy or confidentiality/proprietary concerns. (You
never saw Franconia mentioned here until the news was out by
word of mouth at Tucson last year.)

I was going to wait until the preprint of Meteoritical Bulletin
#89 comes out, but in the spirit of taking my own advice above,
I thought I'd spill the beans early. As many of you know, I've
spent a fair amount of time over the last 5+ years systematically
searching dry lakes primarily in California and Nevada. The very
first playa I visited was Lucerne dry lake, primarily due to the
wealth of information available online about the place. But
before I get into my work there, let me give a little history for
those less familiar with Lucerne.

Over 40 years ago, our own Ron Hartman hit upon the idea of
hunting dry lakes for meteorites, reasoning that your odds of
success would be vastly improved thanks to the lack of vegetation,
the (generally) small number of terrestrial rocks to contend with,
the convenience of hunting from a moving vehicle, and the slower
weathering rates of meteorites in the high desert. In July 1963,
Ron found the first meteorite at Lucerne dry lake -- a small L6
chondrite -- proving that his approach could indeed produce
results. A month later, Ronald Oriti found two additional
meteorites at Lucerne: an LL4 and an H6. That October, Ron
Hartman went on to find two more fragments paired to his original
L6 find, and the following month Roderick Leonard discovered an
H4 and a second chondrite that was not classified. So the first
seven finds represented at least four separate falls -- probably
completely unexpected at that time given the relatively small
area involved (about 16 km^2, very little of which could have
been covered in 1963).

Five additional finds were made by five separate people over the
next 5 years, each weighing less than 10 grams (including Lucerne
Valley 009 by tektite expert Darryl Futrell). Lucerne Valley 013
was a long time coming -- found by Byron Groves in 1992, 24 years
after Darwin Ochs found #12.

Another gap of six years followed before Bob Verish came on the
scene, discovering LV 014, 015 and 016 in the space of less than
two months in the autumn of 1998. (The LV 014 find is credited to
both Bob and his wife, Beth.) This new string of successes must
have been too much for Ron Hartman, who returned in March 1999 and
found LV 017 -- over 35 years after making his first find there!

To recap, here's a list of those first 17 finds:

1963

----
001: L6, S2, W3  Fa 24.3 +/- 0.3, 15.8g, Ronald N. Hartman
002: LL4, S2, W3 Fa 27.5 +/- 0.6, 5.8g, Ronald A. Oriti
003: H6, S3, W3  Fa 18.0 +/- 0.4, 7.5g, R. Oriti
004: L6, S2, W3  Fa 24.2 +/- 0.3, 37.4g, R. Hartman
     (physically paired to LV 005 and paired to LV 001)
005: L6, S2, W3  Fa 24.2 +/- 0.3, 3.1g, R. Hartman
     (physically paired to LV 004 and paried to LV 001)
006: H4, S2, W3  Fa 18.2 +/- 0.4, 26.9g, Roderick W. Leonard
     (paired with LV 008-010)
007: stone, 4.8g, R. Leonard
1964
----
008: H4, S2, W3  Fa 18.5 +/- 0.4, 2.0g, Steve Lieberman
     (paired with LV 006, LV 009-010)
1965
----
009: H4, S2, W2  Fa 18.7 +/- 0.2, 3.0g, Darryl Futrell
     (paired with LV 006, 008, 010)
010: H4, S2, W3  Fa 18.2 +/- 0.4, 6.4g, Alan Crisp
     (paired with LV 006, 008-009)
1968
----
011: L6, S4, W3  Fa 24.5 +/- 0.2, 3.8g, Richard Russell
012: H6, S2, W3  Fa 19.4 +/- 0.3, 1.2g, Darwin Ochs
1992
----
013: L5, S2, W3  Fa 25.3 +/- 0.3, 4.1g, Byron Groves
     (probably paired with LV014, 016)
1998
----
014: L5, S2, W4  Fa 24.6 +/- 0.2, 3.4g, Beth and Robert Verish
     (probably paired with LV013, 016)
015: LL6, S3, W2 Fa 30.9 +/- 0.1, 12.5g, R. Verish
016: L5, S2, W3  Fa 25.2 +/- 0.2, 4.1g, R. Verish
     (probably paired with LV 013, 016)
1999
----
017: L6, S3, W4  Fa 25.5 +/- 0.6, 12.8g, R. Hartman
[story continued in Part 2]

Received on Wed 05 Jan 2005 06:07:49 PM PST