[meteorite-list] Jim Kriegh's collection in OV

[mexicodoug at aim.com]

http://www.explorernews.com/article/show/21655

Don't miss Twink's great article about the display of some of Jim 
Kriegh's meteorites in Oro Valley! Best,
Doug

Kriegh's rocks from the sky on display in OV
Guest column by Twink Monrad
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By: Special to the Explorer
March 19, 2008
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In 1995 Jim Kriegh, his friend John Blennert, and I belonged to the 
Desert Gold Diggers, a local club whose members hunt for gold in 
Arizona.

Dr. David Kring, a meteoriticist and planetary scientist from the 
University of Arizona, spoke at one of the club’s meetings and 
encouraged those who used metal detectors to keep an eye and ear out 
for meteorites, generally small nondescript objects that look nothing 
like gold. Jim paid good attention, because while searching for gold in 
the Santa Rita Mountains he found a rock which turned out to be a 
meteorite, later named the Greaterville meteorite.

Jim and John also searched for gold far north of Tucson in the 
northwestern corner of the state, the Gold Basin area. While there, 
they kept hearing rocks which sounded like gold on their metal 
detectors but did not look like gold. Jim took some samples to 
Dr.Kring, who identified them as stone meteorites.

I was invited along on the next trip to Gold Basin. We went with our 
camping equipment and, most important, a generator and power saw to cut 
any likely meteorite specimens that we might find. The first day, John 
and Jim came back to camp with numerous rocks while I was still 
learning how to use my detector! Several times a day we would bring 
back rocks which made noise and were magnetic. Jim sawed them open. 
Some were meteorites, and some were not.

As the week progressed, we became more aware of how the meteorites 
looked, and soon we did not need to saw them open to identify them. We 
took our finds to Dr. Kring at UA. It seemed Jim had discovered a rare 
strewn field.

Now our real work began. We prepared an index card for each meteorite 
with notes on gram weight, date, location, and whether it was found on 
the surface or the depth if buried. We also marked each location on a 
topographic map, but it soon became apparent that there would be too 
many, so Jim began numbering them as groups. A further request was that 
we would tell no one about the find so the university could properly 
study the area for two years. Suddenly we three became a team to assist 
the University of Arizona.

We found over 2,000 meteorites, and expanded the strewn field 
boundaries to five miles by 15 miles. It is not known how large the 
field really is. Meteorite composition tests show that these are L4 
stone meteorites, which fell approximately 15,000 years ago, near the 
end of the Ice Age. We each found a couple of different meteorites in 
this field which represented different falls at different times in 
addition to the original Gold Basin meteorite.

Searching for meteorites is fun and may also make valuable 
contributions to science, as did Jim’s discovery at Gold Basin.  
Meteorites and other objects from space have been important throughout 
history for those who watched the night sky. We are fortunate that 
Jim’s meteorite collection is available for the Oro Valley community to 
enjoy.