I may have found a couple of meteorites

[PAllen]

Back in the old days, when hobbyists could readily buy real chemicals, the mineral collector's test for nickel used Dimethylglyoxime. If you can get this it should be very easy to test for nickel.

 

[arildno]

Why not run the following test, Ivan?

We know, on basis of Netonian gravitational theory that most meteorites go in hyperbolic orbits passing the Earth just once.

Thus, if you just throw your stones into the air, they will follow their natural hyperbolic course if they are meteorites, if not, they will come back down.

 

[turbo]

Why not run the following test, Ivan?

We know, on basis of Netonian gravitational theory that most meteorites go in hyperbolic orbits passing the Earth just once.

Thus, if you just throw your stones into the air, they will follow their natural hyperbolic course if they are meteorites, if not, they will come back down.

 

[Ms Music]

Thus, if you just throw your stones into the air, they will follow their natural hyperbolic course if they are meteorites, if not, they will come back down.

Sounds as if you are suggesting his rocks are "leaverites?"

Sometimes when I went rock hunting with my dad, I would show him what I thought was a cool stone and ask what it was, and he would tell me it was a leaverite. As in leave er rite there.

Even if Ivan's stones *are* leaverites, this is a cool thread.

 

[DaveC426913]

Sometimes when I went rock hunting with my dad,

Must be easy. Don't need a blind. Or camo. Probably won't ruin your fender.

But what does the whistle sound like?

he would tell me it was a leaverite. As in leave er rite there.

 

[arildno]

Your Dad was a wise man, MsMusic!

 

[PAllen]

Back in the old days, when hobbyists could readily buy real chemicals, the mineral collector's test for nickel used Dimethylglyoxime. If you can get this it should be very easy to test for nickel.

It looks like you can buy this all packeaged as nickel test kit:

http://www.delasco.com/pcat/3/Self-Help_Products/Spot-Test-P/Spot_Test-P/

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It looks like you can buy this all packeaged as nickel test kit:

http://www.delasco.com/pcat/3/Self-Help_Products/Spot-Test-P/Spot_Test-P/

Thanks! I was looking around and found one site that says this is prone to false positives. So I guess a negative result is definitive, and a positive result is not. Perhaps cutting it open will be enough to determine if this is anything ineteresting.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Your Dad was a wise man, MsMusic!

Oh good! An expert.

Please do tell. What is it, and how were you able to make that determination?

 

[PAllen]

Thanks! I was looking around and found one site that says this is prone to false positives. So I guess a negative result is definitive, and a positive result is not. Perhaps cutting it open will be enough to determine if this is anything ineteresting.

It was the standard test by mineralogists, way back when. I think it does get confused with palladium, which might occur in jewelry, but is a very unlikely confusing factor for minerals or a meteorite. If you have any reluctance to cutting it, I would definitely try this first (grind a little fresh surface with alumina or silicon carbide sandpaper first).

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It was the standard test by mineralogists, way back when. I think it does get confused with palladium, which might occur in jewelry, but is a very unlikely confusing factor for minerals or a meteorite. If you have any reluctance to cutting it, I would definitely try this first (grind a little fresh surface with alumina or silicon carbide sandpaper first).

Excellent! That sounds like the next best step. I'll get some on its way.

It's cheap. [and decent to very good scales are insanely cheap now!]

 

[zoobyshoe]

Ivan, I just got back from one of my coffee shops where I talked to a woman (of about our age), and I mentioned your quest for meteorites to her. It spurred her into a long reminiscence about her father who was a metal detector treasure hunter freak. She inherited his finds. She said she had at least 20 tubes of silver dollars (she indicated a length of about ten inches per tube with her hands) that he had found. I thought that was a awful lot, and asked where he'd found them. She said he hunted for old farmsteads and scoured them with the detector. Apparently it was very, very common for people to distrust banks and their relatives, and to simply bury their savings around the property in tin cans. Mostly he found cans of coins, but once he found a crumbling can full of two dollar silver certificates. Thought I'd mention it, since you live on an old farm.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Ivan, I just got back from one of my coffee shops where I talked to a woman (of about our age), and I mentioned your quest for meteorites to her. It spurred her into a long reminiscence about her father who was a metal detector treasure hunter freak. She inherited his finds. She said she had at least 20 tubes of silver dollars (she indicated a length of about ten inches per tube with her hands) that he had found. I thought that was a awful lot, and asked where he'd found them. She said he hunted for old farmsteads and scoured them with the detector. Apparently it was very, very common for people to distrust banks and their relatives, and to simply bury their savings around the property in tin cans. Mostly he found cans of coins, but once he found a crumbling can full of two dollar silver certificates. Thought I'd mention it, since you live on an old farm.

Wow! That would be cool.

The nice thing about this creek is that it just keeps pumping in new material each year. So in addition to the five acres we have, which I have yet to work, the creek is a constant source of new potential finds.

Funny, the metal detector seems to have died the day after I used it. It worked great for a little over an hour, and that was it. Now it keeps getting false detections. I told the guy who loaned it to me who now admits that it's been marginal for a long time. So I'll have to get something else to use.

Something else we find a lot of is petrified wood. Some of it is pretty valuable. I gave a friend one big piece that was probably worth about $500.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The meteorite lab called back today. I wasn't here to take the call and I'm hoping this won't become a game of phone tag. But I had given a fairly detailed description of the large stone, including the density, so a call back is encouraging.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

You're right about the magnet if it were pure cast iron, but by "foundry waste" I meant some kind of slag: what they skim off the top of molten metal before they pour it. This would not have a high iron content.

I'm not sure you can be 100% certain there was no one casting iron in the area, ever. A local farrier or blacksmith might have had a side line casting plows or skillets, or bootjacks, or ornamental door knockers for that matter.

The reason I'm going on about this is that, while you say they didn't fail the streak test, they also didn't pass it. A meteorite should leave no streak. And, as you pointed out, you found two within a short distance of each other, which is unlikely for meteorites.

Good point. There was never a large foundry, but there could have been a small operation on a farm. We are just about at the end of civilization but there are a few more farms beyond here.

Another even more likely possibility occurred to me: Illegal dumps! Happens all the time. In fact, that's probably how we got a few of our cats over the years. People dump them in the hills. Then they follow the creek and eventually land in my barn or at our back door.

Right now, I'd bet this explains it. It's something man made that was dumped in the hills, who knows when. It could have been deposited over many hundreds or even thousands of acres, 100 years ago or more. For that matter, in the extreme, it could have been carried here by the Great Missoula Floods. Or, the guy up the road might have a small foundry.

Just based on what we know about it, I tend to think it might be a meteorite, but I can't believe I could find one so fast. That just doesn't seem possible. And as you said, Zooby, finding two makes it even more unlikely. One could be a fragment from the other but that certainly isn't clear. And finding them so close together seems equally unlikely in a normally rapidly flowing creek. If this does check out to be a meterorite, I think this episode qualifies for entry into both Ripleys and The Guinness Book.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

On the other hand, I just spoke with the professor from the meteorite lab, and he's willing to drive 40 miles to take a look.

He chuckled at bit when I said that recognizing one on sight seems to be an art form. If I grind off a small section to expose the inner material, apparently he can tell at a glance.

 

[zoobyshoe]

On the other hand, I just spoke with the professor from the meteorite lab, and he's willing to drive 40 miles to take a look.

He chuckled at bit when I said that recognizing one on sight seems to be an art form. If I grind off a small section to expose the inner material, apparently he can tell at a glance.

Wow! They make housecalls.

This will settle it. If it turns out they are meteorites there may be more. A much larger one might have shattered such that there are more pieces to the puzzle.

If they were two completely unrelated meteorites, that would be some kind of record, to find them so close to each other, and both on your first try.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Wow! They make housecalls.

This will settle it. If it turns out they are meteorites there may be more. A much larger one might have shattered such that there are more pieces to the puzzle.

If they were two completely unrelated meteorites, that would be some kind of record, to find them so close to each other, and both on your first try.

Not a housecall but the nearest reasonable, mutually convenient meeting place. However, it turns out he will be going through this area later this week, so we are hoping to meet up then when he's passing by.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Okay, I should know by about noon tomorrow. Turns out he has spent many hours doing research-related work in the restaurant I suggested as a meeting place. He also has some very deep family roots around here, with a town, a lake, a creek, roads, stores, and other public locations carrying his family name.

Also, just for the record, I was able to check the density of the larger stone a bit more accurately and came up with 3.3 +-0.1gr/ml.

 

[arildno]

Okay, I should know by about noon tomorrow. Turns out he has spent many hours doing research-related work in the restaurant I suggested as a meeting place.

Has he found any leaverites there??

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Has he found any leaverites there??

As it turns out, 99.8% of all potential finds are leaverites.

It is some form of basalt. He said the density isn't quite right for basalt so he's not sure of the origins.

A few facts that he passed along: Firstly, had this been a meteorite it would have been a VERY BIG deal. I had no idea! Only six have ever been found in Oregon and the last two resulted in national press conferences. He said that Oregon is particularly tough because we have a lot of magnetic basalts, which can make meteorite identification in the field all but impossible. In fact, there is almost no way to distinguish between magnetic basalt, and a lunar or Martian meteorite. Many times the only way to know it’s a meteorite [without an electron microscope] is if it hits a house or barn.

I guess even the experts spend most of their careers chasing dead ends. But he took a bit of time to show me various types of meteorites that he brought with him. He said that on the average, there is about one meteorite on every square mile of land, but finding them is quite a challenge.

Also, he gave his blessing for the nickel test kit approach. He said they work well and are typically definitive.

For my own purposes, it was noteworthy that the stone meteorites were affected by a strong magnet more than my basalt samples. So this would seem to be a good point of reference. A stone meteorite won't stick to a magnet as forcefully as a chunk of iron will, but the basalt was significantly less magnetic than the real McCoy.

 

[arildno]

Have you tried my Newtonian test yet??

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Have you tried my Newtonian test yet??

Why? Now I have a good point of reference for magnetic basalt. And the fact still stands that this creek moves tons of rocks through the property each year. He thought it was a great idea to check this each summer. So it makes sense to keep the false hits as references.

 

[zoobyshoe]

As it turns out, 99.8% of all potential finds are leaverites.

It is some form of basalt. He said the density isn't quite right for basalt so he's not sure of the origins.

A few facts that he passed along: Firstly, had this been a meteorite it would have been a VERY BIG deal. I had no idea! Only six have ever been found in Oregon and the last two resulted in national press conferences. He said that Oregon is particularly tough because we have a lot of magnetic basalts, which can make meteorite identification in the field all but impossible. In fact, there is almost no way to distinguish between magnetic basalt, and a lunar or Martian meteorite. Many times the only way to know it’s a meteorite [without an electron microscope] is if it hits a house or barn.

I guess even the experts spend most of their careers chasing dead ends. But he took a bit of time to show me various types of meteorites that he brought with him. He said that on the average, there is about one meteorite on every square mile of land, but finding them is quite a challenge.

Also, he gave his blessing for the nickel test kit approach. He said they work well and are typically definitive.

For my own purposes, it was noteworthy that the stone meteorites were affected by a strong magnet more than my basalt samples. So this would seem to be a good point of reference. A stone meteorite won't stick to a magnet as forcefully as a chunk of iron will, but the basalt was significantly less magnetic than the real McCoy.

Wow, I am amazed they're that rare! I thought the odds were perfectly in favor of them being meteorites, what with billions of years of bombardment.

I ran into my old friend, Dave the Scrap Metal Guy last night. He's into reclaiming the precious metals from electronics now. I went over to his house and he showed me a lump of what he said was platinum/palladium/rhodium that he scavenged from hard drive disks. He said it weighed just about an ounce and should be worth around $1600.00. He went out and bought drums of hydrochloric and nitric acids, and he dissolves every thing and precipitates the precious metals out one by one.

On a side note, he only recently discovered what monel was. He's afraid that for years he's been selling it as stainless steel, which is only worth 57 cents a pound as compared to $4.00 a pound for monel.

Anyway, I think everyone enjoys treasure hunting of one kind or another.

 

[DaveC426913]

I have a very simple test, requiring virtually no effort on your part.

1] Give the rocks to me.
2] If you don't hear anything from me, it was not a valuable rock.
Optional:
3] Check what's parked in my driveway.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Wow, I am amazed they're that rare! I thought the odds were perfectly in favor of them being meteorites, what with billions of years of bombardment.

Yeah, that was definitely news to me. I knew it was highly unlikely that one might go out and find one in fifteen minutes, but I also was under the impression that if you spend a good amount of time looking, sooner or later you're likely to find one. Not so. At least, not in Oregon.

Anyway, I think everyone enjoys treasure hunting of one kind or another.

What makes me cringe a bit is to think that for about seventeen summers, we've walked that creek and looked very carefully for quartz, petrified wood, and semi-precious stones. And we've found about five, five-gallon buckets full of those treasures. But it never occurred to me before that we should be looking for meteorites as well.

 

[arildno]

Meteorites are very common in Norway.
On their way down, they tend to slice off our mountain tops, and that is why we have so many rounded mountains here, rather than an alpine landscape.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Interestingly, a quick check of the math suggests that the odds of any given rock being magnetic basalt, in my creek, are probably ~ 1:100,000. So it was still a rare find!

In reality, the treasure find rate varies greatly with the flow rate. Things are always most interesting after typically maximum flows - in the range of 100 cfs. You can hear boulders tumbling, 24 hours a day, when the flow gets that high. We have seen flows as high as 300 cfs but that was a 500 year flood. Some years, the flow may never exceed ~ 30 cfs.

 

[Borek]

If you put strong enough magnet in the creek you can be sure you will not miss any iron meteorites. Nor magnetic basalt.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

If you put strong enough magnet in the creek you can be sure you will not miss any iron meteorites. Nor magnetic basalt.

Ooooh, a magnetic net! That's an interesting idea.

The creek is up to about twenty feet in width, and you would want the "net" in an area where the water velocity it at a minimum - the widest spot - so it could be pretty expensive to cover that span with magnets, but I'm going to have to ponder that one for a time.