[meteorite-list] Kenna Meteorite - Ivan Wilson 1978 NPA

[MARK BOSTICK]

Paper: The News
City: Frederick, Maryland
Date: Monday, November 13, 1978
Page: C-15

     PORTALES, N.JI. (NBA) - In 1968, while searching a field for Indian 
artifacts, Ivan Wilson came across a large rock that caught his fancy. It 
"seemed different," he recalls, and indeed it was. When Wilson hauled the 
boulder home he found he had a 28-pound meteorite, come from millions of 
miles away.
     That find proved to be the first of many for Wilson. In the 10 years 
since, he has located more than 90 primordial stones, at least 75 of them 
separate and distinct from one another. So far as anyone can tell, this 
makes Ivan Wilson the champion meteorite hunter in the history of the world.
     Wilson's title is not official. International researchers have recently 
been finding astonishing numbers of meteorites on the ice at Antarctica. A 
team led by Professor William Cassidy of the University of Pittsburgh, for 
example, has found more than 300 stones; Japanese hunters have uncovered 
nearly 1,000.
     But unless one of the researchers issues a challenge, private citizen 
Wilson is the nonpareil. His nearest known competitor has found less than 20 
stones. Wilson's cache, in fact, represents almost three percent of the 
3,000 individual meteorites that have been recorded through the ages.
     There are of course many more meteorites on earth. Millions more, 
actually. One guess is that the planet's atmosphere is bombarded by a 
million meteors an hour (a meteor is the luminescent streak made by a 
meteorite); most burn up, but many others have been landing here, intact, 
since the beginning of time.
     No one is absolutely certain where the rocks come from. Most scientists 
agree, however, that they are probably the between Mars and Jupiter. 
Observers believe the planet exploded, for unknown reasons, and left the 
cosmic debris that is now known as the asteroid belt.
     Whatever their origin, though, and their numbers, the meteorites are 
not easy pickings on earth. Most fall and disappear forever in the 70 
percent of the planet that is water. Others are buried in mountains, brushy 
fields and forests. Wilson says only the trained eye can isolate a meteorite 
on cluttered ground.
     In Wilson's case, his trained eye is assisted by a blessing of nature. 
Eastern New Mexico, where he hunts, is composed primarily of caliche, or 
limestone. Stones and boulders simply do not proliferate in the spare 
countryside, hence the chance of finding visitors from space is greatly 
increased.
     Then too, Wilson does not waste time hunting in grass or brush. He 
concentrates on "blowout" regions, where, in the 1930s, winds and droughts 
combined to create huge environmental scars of barren hardpan. Rocks in the 
blowouts, whether meteorites or not, can be spotted with almost casual 
observation.
     Wilson uses binoculars in his searches, and keeps his back to the sun. 
On good days he has found as many as four meteorites, but he may go weeks 
with no finds at all. He returns again and again to the same blowouts, he 
says; the winds are forever howling here, and they uncover new treasures in 
the process.
     Occasionally, the treasures are virtually priceless. Wilson's most 
notable find is the "Kenna" meteorite, named for a town near the discovery. 
That research, contains diamonds that some authorities believe were formed 
not by heat and pressure but by the shock of space travel.
     Aside from the infrequent gem, however, Wilson's meteorites are 
treasures only in an aesthetic sense. The majority of them are quite small, 
weighing only a few grams; some are the size of aspirin pills. Also, most of 
his meteorites are of a stoney material that holds little fascination for 
researchers.
     So it is that Wilson has become neither rich nor famous for his 
extraordinary skills. He says he received a "substantial sum" for the Kenna 
stone, "but most of the meteorites aren't worth very much." Normally, 
researchers today are paying $10 a pound for meteorites, less than for some 
meats in the market.
     As for fame, Wilson is unknown outside the tiny circle of students and 
curators familiar with the phenomenon. He says he has considered writing to 
the editors of the "Guiness Book of World Records," for inclusion in its 
long list of superlatives, but he doesn't know if it's worth the time and 
effort involved.
     And yet there is one satisfaction for the champion. Except for some 
academics and museum professionals, Ivan Wilson, a small-town water works 
employee, has probably handled a greater variety of extraterrestrial 
material than anyone on earth. And science is the wiser and more experienced 
for it.

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