[meteorite-list] Meteorite Found in California?

[j.divelbiss at att.net]

I believe this is the same rock that we decided last month was a piece of slag.

JD

http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/meteorite-list/2004-July/142616.html


-------------- Original message from Ron Baalke : -------------- 

> 
> 
> http://www.dailybreeze.com/content/news/3194068.html 
> 
> Meteor, right? 
> By Josh Grossberg 
> Daily Breeze (Torrance, California) 
> July 22, 2004 
> 
> It traveled for millions of years across the vast emptiness of space, 
> entered the Earth's atmosphere at speeds 50 times faster than a bullet 
> and could be worth up to $20,000. 
> 
> Either that or it's just a rock. 
> 
> All the Patel brothers know is that they heard an odd noise in the 
> middle of the night and the next morning, there was a strange mineral 
> formation in the parking lot of their Redondo Beach inn, named, 
> appropriately enough, the Starlite Motel. 
> 
> Now, after doing some research on the Internet, they're fairly certain 
> the golf-ball-sized, pock-marked object with copper specks is a visitor 
> from outer space. 
> 
> "I was sweeping and I saw it," Dinesh Patel said. "At first I thought it 
> was a rock, and was going to put it in the trash. But it was too heavy." 
> 
> The brothers were sound asleep early Tuesday at their hotel on Pacific 
> Coast Highway when they were both startled awake by a loud noise. Narish 
> Patel described it as a "zzzzz" sound, while Dinesh Patel said it 
> resembled a "car squeaking against a wall." Apparently nobody else heard 
> it, or at least, they didn't contact the Redondo Beach police, which 
> received no calls, Sgt. Phil Keenan said. 
> 
> It could take months of testing to determine exactly what the brothers 
> found. But after looking at a photograph of their prize, two meteorite 
> experts said it is certainly possible that they found what they think 
> they found. 
> 
> "I can't rule it out," said meteorite dealer Michael Blood. 
> 
> Blood said that if it's real, the find would be especially rare because 
> the brothers heard and found the meteorite where it landed, something 
> that has happened only a few thousand times in history. 
> 
> Worth thousands -- maybe 
> 
> And if it came from the moon or Mars, the Patels would really have hit 
> the celestial jackpot. 
> 
> "If it's lunar or martian, it could be worth a couple thousand dollars a 
> gram," Blood said of the rock that weighs about 20 grams. "But the 
> greatest likelihood is it's common chondrite." 
> 
> In which case, the entire stone would be worth maybe a couple hundred bucks. 
> 
> On Wednesday afternoon, the Internet site eBay had 18 purported 
> meteorites for sale, ranging in price from $6.99 to $1,000. 
> 
> Who would spend so much on so little? Very few people, it turns out. 
> 
> "It's a very intense industry that's very small," Blood said. "My 
> estimate is there are 3,000 to 6,000 collectors in the world. Maybe much 
> less." 
> 
> Blood said that Meteorite Magazine, the bible of the field, has a 
> circulation of about 1,000. 
> 
> The allure of meteorites -- which are meteors that reach the Earth 
> intact -- is their otherworldliness. 
> 
> "There's nothing else you can put in your hand and look at that's from 
> out of the world," Blood said. "They come from countless millions of 
> miles away. I've spent hundreds of hours looking for them and found only 
> one. These things are hard to come by." 
> 
> Alan Rubin, a research geochemist at the Institute of Geophysics and 
> Planetary Physics at UCLA, was less optimistic than Blood. 
> 
> "It doesn't look very promising," said Rubin, who earned a Ph.D. 
> studying meteors. "If it's a meteorite, it's very unusual." 
> 
> Tests will offer the answer 
> 
> Still, he said, tests would need to be conducted to be sure. 
> 
> "The texture is unlike any meteorite I've seen, but there's always a 
> chance," he said. "I can't rule it out." 
> 
> If the find turns out to be something common, it wouldn't be the first 
> time someone saw space stuff on the ground. 
> 
> "I had a woman drive hundreds of miles and show up in my driveway with a 
> truck full of rocks," Blood said. "They hear that a lunar meteorite 
> sells for $1,000 a gram and then they find a rock and think they're rich." 
> 
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