[meteorite-list] Expedition ST01-Bravo field report

Fri Apr 22 21:09:04 EDT 2005

Stan,

Thanx for sharing your trip and pictures with us. That little piece of chassignite is cute.

Cute as in HOLY COW Stan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  What a buy!!!!!!!

JD

-------------- Original message from "stan ." <laser_maniac at hotmail.com>: -------------- 

> 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. 
> 
> 
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