[meteorite-list] NPA 01-17-1996 Big Bucks paid for meteorites, Steve Arnold (IMB)

[MARK BOSTICK]

Paper: The Valley Independent
City: Monessen, Pennsylvania
Date: Wednesday, January 17, 1996
Page: 8A (Valley Life Section)

"Pennies from Heaven"
Big bucks paid for meteorites

By DOUG BAKER
Thomson News Service

     MARION, Ohio - If you have a big, shiny rock in the back yard or on 
your farm, it may be worth thousands of dollars.
     Steve Arnold, director of the American Meteorite Institute, is in 
search of meteorites.
     Arnold's Oklahoma-based organization will pay landowners about $50 per 
pound, up to 100 pounds, for meteorites on their property.  The type of 
meteorite also impacts the price per pound.
     The price per pound for rocks over 100 pounds goes down, but if the 
rock is big enough it could net its owner up to $10,000.
     Thousands of meteorites are plowed up each year but few are recognized. 
  Arnold is especially encouraging farmers to be on the lookout for rocks 
with these characteristics:
     *extremely heavy,
     *smooth exterior, like lava;
     *rounded corners;
     *black, brown or rusty to color;
     *magnets will usually attract to them,
     *surface may have indentations resembling thumb prints;
     *filing a corner of the rock with an emery board will reveal small 
metal specks.
     Of these indicators, weight is one of the most telling.  A rock the 
size of a cantaloupe weighs 10 pounds, but a meteor of the same size would 
weigh 25 pounds.
     Arnold will be in Ohio next week to speak with people who believe they 
have found meteorites.
     "With a little luck something new might turn up," Arnold said. "In Hale 
County, Texas, there have been 15 different meteorites found."
     A farmer who had a watermelon-sized rock in his garden for 15 years 
discovered it was actually a 100-pound meteorite worth $5,000.
     "Meteorites are valuable to scientists since they contain materials 
that have remained basically unchanged since the formation of the universe," 
Arnold said. "Since each meteorite is unique, the possibilities for valuable 
new information exist with each newly discovered meteorite.  That is why it 
is important to get the rocks identified and made available to researchers."
     Arnold said there have been seven meteorites found in Ohio ranging from 
two pounds to more than 100.  In Kansas, more than 130 meteorites have been 
found.
     "You guys (Ohioans) should have 70 meteorites,: Arnold said. "There's a 
heck of a lot of them ot there that haven't been found." Some studies 
suggest there should be an average of one meteorite for every 5.5 acres, 
Arnold said.
     If a meteorite is located, Arnold will then contact the neighbors 
living in a four- or five-mile radius of the property where it was found.
     "(You're) typically looking at about a 50-50 chance that when one comes 
in it will break up into pieces." Arnold said.  Most meteor showers which 
have taken place during the past 150 years are logging in one scientific 
journal or another.
     Those who think they may have a meteorite in their possession should 
chip off a walnut-sized piece of the rock and send it to Arnold at: American 
Meteorite Institute. 8177 S. Harvard 610, Tulsa, Okla., 74137.
     Arnold urges those who suspect, a meteor to go ahead and send the rock, 
even though it might be a "meteorwrong."
     "My attitude is if 50 people send me 'meteorwrongs' and one turns out 
to be a 'right', then that is better than getting none of them," Arnold 
said.

(end)


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Clear Skies,
Mark Bostick
Wichita, Kansas
http://www.meteoritearticles.com
http://www.kansasmeteoritesociety.com
http://www.imca.cc