[meteorite-list] First Meteorite Hunt

From: Meteorites USA <eric_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2010 10:14:34 -0800
Message-ID: <4CE8100A.2070200_at_meteoritesusa.com>

A HUGE CONGRATULATIONS ABE!!!! What a great story of a first find! This
is what it's all about!

A new meteorite added to science, inspired by TV/Videos of meteorite
hunting... AWESOME! Very exciting! Keep us updated on the classification.

CONGRATS!

Regards,
Eric


On 11/19/2010 3:26 PM, Guenther wrote:
> Here is a short story about a first time meteorite hunting experience.
>
> I live in an area of Canada that has not yielded any meteorites to speak of
> so I knew I needed to look at hotter, dryer areas for the best chance at a
> successful first trip. I did over a year of research and planning before I
> finally made my decision where to go. I read countless success stories and
> watched a lot of meteorite hunting shows and videos on YouTube before
> narrowing my search. Almost overwhelmed at all the places I could try, a few
> weeks before the much awaited trip I decided on Nevada. Besides the cheap
> airfare to Vegas, there were lots of success stories near Vegas. I had a few
> places mapped out in Nevada, Arizona and California that I wanted to hunt
> over the 9 day trip. After finding nothing in 5 days of my lone journey it
> was time to pick up my son who flew in to join me for the final 4 days.
> Considering this was his first time too, I am sure he wasn't too confident
> since his dad hadn't found anything yet. But he and I both knew we were
> saving the best place for last! This was the part of the trip we were both
> anticipating because our destination several hours away would be to a dry
> lake bed that we knew had yielded some meteorites just recently. Since it
> was supposed to be a secret location, we were confident that if there were
> still any meteorites left, we would find some.
>
> It rained a lot on the way so we were concerned about how bad it might be on
> the lake bed. We arrived at the dry lake area near dark so all we wanted to
> do the first day was figure out how to get to the lake since there were no
> clear roads to access it. We could hardly wait to get out there the next
> morning bright and early. We finally made it to the lake bed at about 9:00am
> after a muddy trek and nearly 2 hours travel from the motel. The rain had
> definitely made it slippery but we were surprises that it wasn't actually
> too bad on the lake bed itself. The first day didn't yield anything special
> except a really fun time. My son found a complete dried out coyote skull
> that he kept and an arrow head. We also found a several rocks that drew our
> magnets but they were obviously not meteorites because of deep, sharp
> cavities and what we would soon discover over the next couple of days, this
> was a common rock in the area. We usually parked and then walked for a few
> hours at a time and when we started to get tired, we would just drive the
> truck during our rests. It was during one of these drives that I happen to
> look to my left and noticed what I thought was another cow patty. I stopped
> and the first thing I did when I got out was kick it. It didn't move. I
> don't remember what I said but my son knew that I was excited about
> something. I picked it up and it felt like 5 pounds. It was unusually heavy
> compared to the other rocks. I had no doubt it would draw the magnet but it
> was surprising to see it stick so hard. This was the last hour of the last
> day of the trip and all we could think is how lucky we had been to find our
> first meteorite and to top it off, one so big!
>
> When we got home I still thought that we had been on the right lake bed. I
> just couldn't wait to tell everyone about our success! I looked up someone
> who has excellent knowledge of meteorites and emailed him the pictures. He
> wasn't quite convinced and so he had me take some more pictures. To my
> delight, he emailed me back a "congratulations". It was only after doing
> some more research about the lake bed that I realized we were 100 miles away
> from the lake bed we had researched. In a way I am sort of glad we went to
> the wrong lake bed but I'm happy we didn't know at the time. I don't know if
> we discovered a new meteorite fall but it is fun to think we did. Ignorance
> is bliss.
>
> A few pictures: http://aguenthe.mnsi.net/NM1.jpg,
> http://aguenthe.mnsi.net/NM2.jpg, http://aguenthe.mnsi.net/NM3.jpg,
> http://aguenthe.mnsi.net/NM4.jpg.
>
> Abe Guenther
>
>
>
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Received on Sat 20 Nov 2010 01:14:34 PM PST