[meteorite-list] Michael Cottingham's Barwell auctions

From: ensoramanda <ensoramanda_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2007 00:57:22 +0100
Message-ID: <46DF4262.7000104_at_ntlworld.com>

Hi Bernd and All,

Whilst we are on the subject of the Barwell meteorite I would like to
ask some questions regarding it?

And BTW thanks to Bernd all those who replied to my request for help
with my meteortics presentation. I am stunned by everyones generosity.
Many thanks.

I live just a few miles from the Barwell strewnfield...it fell the day
after my 9th birthday... and obviously a piece was high on my list of
'must-haves'...so got my 2.3g slice in one of Moritz Carl's auctions for
almost exactly the same price per gram as Michael is asking.

Moritz has a great 49.6 crusted chunk on his site at the moment for a
similar price per gram...

http://www.m3t3orites.com/meteorites/barwell.php

Anyway...the questions..

If there are still any pieces lying around about Barwell, what sort of
condition would you think they would be in by now, after 40 years out in
our British climate conditions. Would they survive or would the iron
rust and cause them to crumble away?

I would have thought that larger pieces might still survive.

I spent some time with Rob Elliot, a group of volunteers and the BBC a
couple of years ago using magnets and searching the front of the strewn
field for small pieces. We found nothing at all.

I have walked areas all around the strewnfield many times with my
walking stick/magnet and have a collection of small possibles...but
nothing definite. So I am thinking of investing in a metal detector and
heading for the far end of the strewnfield in the hope that there may be
some larger chunks that were missed by the quite thorough search that
was conducted in the months following the fall. There are many stories
of people throwing pieces of it away after finding them on their
property the day after the fall and not able to find them again when
they were told what they were!! From looking at the main masses of
Barwell and archive photos it seems likely that there must be more out
there....also the fireball was reported to have split into 3 distinct
meteors spread far apart if observations were correct...although some of
these likely fell many miles away from Barwell in unpopulated areas.

Only this lunchtime I spent a while in a metal detector dealership with
a variety of meteorites, including my small Barwell slice, testing a
whole variety of models. Most just showed as 'hot rocks' but being a
novice in this area I found it fascinating how many models could read
the unique signatures of different objects and predict their makeup as
foil or gold or silver etc.

More surprising is that my small Barwell slice seemed to have a unique
signature too...the signal on the White's M series was in many ways
similar to silver. Some detectors however could not even pick up the
iron in Kg sized lumps of chondrites.

I know that the subject of metal detectors for hunting meteorites has
been discussed many times on the list before but I would be glad to hear
any thoughts from the experts out there about good and bad experiences
with different models of detectors. Many must have been mentioned over
the years...but I cant remember the makes/models. If anyone has a
record of where in the archives this info may be it might be better than
getting it repeated on the list...that is unless some of you out there
would like the subject investigated again....or indeed have some new
tips to share about how they use there detectors or there favorite models.

I felt rather overwhelmed with options in the shop at lunchtime....was
it worth spending megabucks for advanced options such as multifrequency
models, larger coils, etc etc. Would I then get to Barwell and find
that the soil type was highly mineralised and mask all the finds...or
would I just be overwhelmed with signals when the settings might have to
be so sensitive???

Much more research needed methinks before I head off on my 'big
adventure' 10 minutes up the road. (not quite that desert hunting trek
I've always hankered after is it?) Still it keeps my carbon footprint
low ;-)

Regards

Graham Ensor


bernd.pauli at paulinet.de wrote:

>Michael wrote: "Over 2 grams of the BARWELL Meteorite Fall From England"
>
>http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=200147010552
>
>Hello List,
>
>I'd like to let you know that Michael has 18 Barwell items on EBay, 17 of
>them are Buy-It-Now items. Well, e...erh, he had 19 items but when I saw
>his competitive prices, the best price for Barwell that I have ever seen,
>I just couldn't, ... yes, you know what's coming now :-)...I just couldn't
>resist. I'm sure my Barwell thin section will be highly pleased about this
>new addition to my collection!
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Bernd
>
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Received on Wed 05 Sep 2007 07:57:22 PM PDT