[meteorite-list] Expedition ST01-Bravo field report

[stan .]

Well after a long hard week of travel (comming home to nothing other than 
tax time) I have a few pictures of my trip to England and France to share.


- the front entrance of the natural history meseum in london - the building 
is ALMST as impressive as what it houses - ALMOST.
http://img257.echo.cx/img257/3073/london16pz.jpg

- While taking the 'behind the scenes' tour of the meteorite collection I 
walked down a hallway with a large rock sitting humbly in a cabinet next to 
other mineral specimins - I do a doubletake as I passed the cabinet - "was 
that? NO it couldnt be!' I say to my self - WRONG - the stone in question 
was the mian mass of Parnalee - one of the best looking LL3's out there - 
the 100 LBS+ main mass of Parnalee! The cut face with probably 2 square feet 
of area main mass of Parnalee! it's a shame the photos didnt come out 
better, but this should give you an idea of how awsome a stone it is.
http://img257.echo.cx/img257/1706/london27lp.jpg

-This is a weird one - probably one of the best meteorwrongs out there.
http://img257.echo.cx/img257/6992/london34dj.jpg

Many Thanks for Dr. Sarah Russell and Ms Emma Bullock for taking the time to 
put up with me saying 'oh can i see this, and this, and this' (ad infinitum)

Now moving on to Lyon France to visit Bruno and Carine-

-Bruno and Carine are only just getting their showroom set up now but their 
home is nothing less of a museum than the previous stop on my trip was. One 
of the first things you see when walking in is a T. Rex skull staring down 
at you. Display cabinets containing fossils, roman antiquities and last but 
not least rocks from space - a surprising number of them from the red 
planet!
http://img257.echo.cx/img257/4912/france19mw.jpg
http://img257.echo.cx/img257/6325/france28nm.jpg
http://img257.echo.cx/img257/619/france47cn.jpg

-My first day in France I got to run wild through the inventory - all of the 
plastic bins you see are full of neat achonderites, carbonaceous, impact 
melts, orientated OCs, and great freshly crusted stones. Meteorites every 
everywhere you look. I dont mean to imply that Bruno and Carine are messy or 
disorganized but if there was ever a place you would have to worry about the 
'problem' of having so many meteorites you are tripping all over them - this 
would be it. After looking at the 'common' rare stones Bruno served up a 
tray of the 'good stuff'. You know you are going to have fun looking at 
meteorites when the most common thing infront of you is a 400g piece of 
agult. And the bulk of the weight of a none too light tray is from mars.
http://img257.echo.cx/img257/6127/france39kp.jpg
http://img257.echo.cx/img257/9200/france52gp.jpg

-The next day Bruno took me to the site of a roman house that was evident 
due to numerous pieces of terra cotta seen in the soil. I have sifted 
through TENS of TONS of rocks at the edges of fields, and gone metal 
detectng once or twice in my days, but never ONCE did I find a single thing. 
After about 10 minutes I dug up the medallion off an old Peugeot. 5 minutes 
later a roman nail - then a few minutes after that - JACKPOT! a roman coin 
from the time of the emporor Trajan - 116 AD. I know some other list members 
may have found gold and silver that were few hundred years old but this coin 
sat in the earth for nearly 1900 years untill I found it! it was a thrill of 
a lifetime for me!
http://img257.echo.cx/img257/3029/france61nf.jpg
http://img257.echo.cx/img257/3996/france77ko.jpg
http://img257.echo.cx/img257/7736/france87qh.jpg

-Now on to the hard part. Bruno trying to seperate me from my money and me 
trying to seperate him from his best rocks! after a grueling afternoon of 
negotiations followed by a break for dinner and a bit of burning of the 
midnight oil we finally came to a deal - a nice big pile of achonderites and 
even a little piece of the new chassignite nwa2737 seen bellow with an end 
cut of DAG 1037. I never thought I would get a modest size piece of 
chassignite for my collection but here it is - now all i need is a descent 
sized piece of nakhla to round out my snc type colelction!
http://img257.echo.cx/img257/7352/rocks3ui.jpg

-Aparently Carine was a little unhappy with the steal of a deal Bruno 
offered me, I walked in on this scene the next morning. Fortunatly no one 
was injured - most particularly the 15 or 20 kg henbury sitting on the 
window sill behind Bruno!
http://img257.echo.cx/img257/6914/france96hg.jpg

All in all it was a great week and many thanks to Bruno and Carine for 
hosting me while in France.