[meteorite-list] Carancas meteorite expedition

From: Michael Farmer <meteoriteguy_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 11:39:41 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <495944.6535.qm_at_web33111.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hi everyone, I am writing from an undisclosed
location, but will be home tomorrow night from Peru.
Robert Ward, Moritz Karl, and myself have been in
Carancas for the last 4 days. When I say craphole,
Desaguadero is the definition that would come up
first! More on that later, we had to get creative
today to leave town as the corrupt police had us all
staked out all night, including visits to my hotel
room last night and at 5 am this morning demanding
payment for protection and permision to leave the
country.

We toured the crater for days, bought and found some
nice material, and will post photos in a couple of
days. The crater is huge, the meteorite inside must
weigh in excess of 4000-5000 kilos. Compared with the
1700 kilogram Jilin main mass which made a crater less
than half the size of the Carancas meteorite.
Unfortunately, the government of Peru in all it?s
wisdom, wants the meteorite to rot in the water, as
they see dollar signs in bringing tourists to the
crater which in one month will be nothing more than a
mudpit as the rains are about to begin. Yesterday we
had the entire village present and pumped out the
water from the crater, and the locals were about to
dig, then at 1 pm, the mayor decided that was enough
work for the day, and would let the crater fill with
water again, so they could start from scratch again
today! The wisdom of the local mayor really impresses
me. He felt that 1 hour of labor yesterday was
sufficient, and ignored my advice that every day
sitting in fetid water was not doing the meteorite any
good.
All of the meteorite fragments that were blown out of
the crater have been sold off to people, and taken by
locals, very little is there, mostly crumbs and dust.
We got some nice pieces, all pristine, not rusted
crap, and I will offer some for sale when I get home.
The meteorite is a high-metal chondrite, highly
brecciated, and most fragments have shock veins on the
outside, where they broke apart, at first we thought
that it was strange fusion crust, then realized that
they black crust is actully shock vein where the
clasts seperated.
More later, we are tired, and have been travling the
dangerous Peruvian roads all day.
I will add more to the story soon, but rest assured,
the meteorite is mostly lost/rotted away because the
people from the universities in Peru are clueless. We
had a meeting/interrigation at police headquarters for
some hours last night, and it seems that they know
more about meteorite than I do. IE, they are
dangerous, they are contaminated, they bring diseases,
they kill livestock and poison the village water. Thus
it cant be dug up!

Michael Farmer
Received on Tue 02 Oct 2007 02:39:41 PM PDT