[Rockhounds] A most exciting method of collecting...

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

It was Penn State that put magnets into coal mines to find fossil 
meteorites...

http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1996/A/199600391.html


On Sunday, Nov 30, 2008, at 10:06 America/Detroit, J. R. Hodel wrote:

> Waiting for a rock to fall from the sky and explode just above a rural 
> community!
>
> I saw a noteworthy meteor back in 1969, my (then girlfriend) wife and 
> I were driving to my parent's house after work around midnight, and 
> the landscape lit up brighter than mid-day.  We each leaned out the 
> car windows and looked up to see a streak of brilliant light from 
> horizon to horizon, (SSW to NNE)!
>
> It quickly dimmed, but when it first lit up I actually thought it was 
> a atomic weapon of some sort!  That's how bright it was, like the end 
> of the world.
>
> The newswires quickly reported that it was seen from North Carolina to 
> upper NY state, and must have just grazed the upper atmosphere.  It 
> was like a huge fluorescent tube across the entire sky, and if it had 
> just a few degrees different course it would have landed in the south 
> somewhere.
>
> My family growing up was night-owls as my Dad worked nights putting 
> out a morning newspaper, so I've seen more meteors and such than most 
> non-astronomers. We live in the country as well, which make it 
> possible to see comets and meteorites and such, compared to the city 
> lights.  Very interesting rocks indeed!
>
> What are the odds of self-collecting one of these babies?  I suppose 
> you could metal-detect around known landing sites and increase the 
> odds a little...  Isn't this how that big meteorite full of crystals 
> displayed in Tuscon a couple of years ago was found?  Hi-tech metal 
> detectors in Nebraska or somewhere like that...IIRC. 
>
> I read once about a geology (or maybe astronomy?) professor who asked 
> mining companies to provide him metal junk, removed from the beltways 
> of underground mines by power electromagnets intended to keep metal 
> tools from messing up crushing machinery, in hopes of finding ancient 
> nickle-iron meteorites, does this ring a bell with anyone?
>
> JR in WV
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