[meteorite-list] "not the best place to hunt meteorites"

[Michael Murray]

Hi List,

(This is somewhat of a rehash of information I have posted before)

If the meteorite hunting bug has landed on your shoulder but you  
think the area you live in is not the best for finding meteorites,  
you should give my hunting method a try.  You could be pleasantly  
surprised at what you come up with.   I went to a local hardware  
store a few years back and purchased a shop magnet cane.  It has a  
wooden handle about 40 inches long with a ring magnet on the bottom  
that is sandwiched in between two plates of steel.  I also purchased  
a couple 2" x 2" x 7mm neodymium iron boron sugermagnets which I  
placed very carefully side by side on the trailing edge of the bottom  
steel plate.  Please note: If you attempt this beware, strong magnets  
like that can injure your fingers quite easily.  Use plenty of  
caution.  I put the cane in a vise so it could not move before  
attempting to place the first magnet on.  The second magnet was a bit  
harder to get into place until it got close enough to the first one.

I have drug my magnet cane all over the place, mostly wherever there  
are gravels.  I have not had any of my finds substantiated by  
experts.  None-the-less I have come up with some very possible  
"suspect" stones.  Some are what I believe are irons and some  
stonys.  A couple suspect stonys I found in dirt not gravels.  This  
is what leaves me to believe that even if you might not think hunting  
in your area would be very good, you may still find that the magnet  
will find them anyway. The smaller objects falling to earth most  
likely will not penetrate very deep into the soil when they hit.   
Some not at all if the surface is somewhat hard.  Erosion can also  
expose them over time.  I live in an area where a river cuts its way  
through the valley.  I have found that the river gravels contain  
quite a few of what I term "suspect" stones.  I suppose the reason  
for this is that in time, due to constant washing from snow runoff  
and forceful rains, a lot of small material finds its way into the  
river, including meteorites.

It takes a little time spent looking close at local rocks to get to  
where you can pick the unusual out from the rest with any certainty.   
Of course, if you live in an area with very few rocks, anything you  
pick up might be worth investigating.

After I have drug the magnets for a bit, I clean off anything that  
has stuck to them into a fine mesh (window) screen sitting down in a  
gold pan.  I put water in the pan so it covers the material.  I then  
wash the materials vigorously in order to get rid of the dirt and  
fines, which are usually magnetite.  Then I screen the material again  
through a 1/4" mesh screen.  That lets me look at similar sized  
pieces less than 1/4" by themselves, and then also those larger than  
1/4" that have been separated by the screen by themselves.  I will  
keep some water in the gold pan with the smaller material and do what  
is known in the gold panning world as a blueberry bounce.  That moves  
the heavy material to the one side of the pan and lets me see any  
iron or metal fairly easily as otherwise those pieces might remain  
buried under other lighter weight stones.  Then I can pass a strong  
refrigerator magnet barely above the rocks and pull out almost all  
the bigger magnetite and iron pieces.  I place the stuff that that  
small magnet collects onto a small paper plate and examine them for  
possible suspect stones before tossing them.  (kind of like gold  
panning, you don't want to throw out a nugget)  Then I will drain and  
let all the stones in the gold pan dry completely.  Once dry, I once  
again do the blueberry bounce technique and look over the material  
closely again using my low-power m-scope.  A hand lens, field  
microscope, or illuminated magnifier all work but the low-power  
microscope has been the easiest on my vision when used for any length  
of time.  I also spend time closely examining the rest of the  
material in the pan because stonys don't always move with the heavier  
materials.  Once I find a suspect stone, I pull it out of the pan  
with plastic tweezers and place it on a small magnet and put it under  
my scope for a good look.  Some I recognize to be unique and put them  
in vials for study later on, and some I keep for examples of good  
meteorwrongs.  Usually 99.999% are simply earth rocks, although even  
some of those are quite interesting.

Not all the suspect stones are small but most I have found are 1/2"  
or less.  A waste of time you say?  Well possibly, but it has been a  
good way for me to learn about meteorites.  This hobby has helped me  
also get interested in learning about other solar bodies as well as  
the earth.  I have a lot of folks on the Met-List to thank for most  
of that type information.  As far as meteorites go,  I'm not so much  
into buying, selling and collecting.  I just really enjoy finding  
them myself and seeing them up close.

So again, I hope some of you who live in the "not the best place to  
hunt meteorites" give this a try.  But be extremely careful how you  
handle strong magnets.  I wouldn't want to see anyone smash a finger  
doing this.  If you are one of the young enthusiasts in this hobby, I  
would have to recommend you don't attempt to add any magnets to the  
cane.  Use it just like it comes from the store.  I did for a while  
and still I found some very interesting stones with it.

I have a picture here that shows both my cane and my latest attempt  
at a magnet rake.  The rake has three 80 mm square x 10 mm thick NDIB  
supermagnets on it.  If you look at it and wonder why I spaced the  
magnets so far apart on this apparatus, suffice it to say I was too  
chicken to get them any closer.  I may move the two outside ones in  
about an inch each at some point.  I can tell you, I had a enough fun  
trying to separate them when getting ready to put them on this rake.   
I wouldn't want to get a body part in between two of them.

Everything was muddy when I last used both these things.  It's cold  
and freezing here still so I haven't tried washing them off. I  
apologize, the picture is not the best.   I think if you can zoom in  
on the cane by the wheel of the air compressor, you can still make  
out the  2 - 2" magnets there side by side on the front edge.   Don't  
look too close at the rake, its my first attempt.

I must explain too that my hunting method and the use of water are  
not highly recommended by others in the world of meteorites.  The  
magnetism might affect testing the stone later on, and tap water may  
cause rust prone stones to rust.

Anyway, best of luck with your hunting,  If you find something, share  
a picture or two

Mike in CO

BTW, the last four pictures are of my first finds using my home-made  
magnet rake.  I have used it twice now on some short distance walks.   
I believe the "suspect" iron is a match to 5 other pieces I had  
previously found with the cane.  Most likely a piece separated out of  
an octahedrite, as I suspect the others like it that I have are.  I  
can't wait for warmer weather so I can take it out to more areas.    
Pictures of the stones aren't too good as they are taken with a  
camera on the m-scope.

<http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/mmurray_02/IMG_0579.jpg>

<http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/mmurray_02/2008_i2.jpg>

<http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/mmurray_02/2008_i1.jpg>

<http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/mmurray_02/2008_s1.jpg>

<http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p124/mmurray_02/2008_s2.jpg>