[meteorite-list] Ash Creek meteorites being found in West, Texas

[edwinthompson at comcast.net]

Hello list members, 

Many of you meteorite hunters in West, Texas are finding stones that are broken exposing interior matrix. I know my son Patrick who is there hunting with Steve Arnold, Rob Wesel, Jason Phillips, Mike Bandli and a number of others is having a blast with everyone. Patrick has had great success in finding small stones and today I received a package from him with a very nice half stone in it that weighs 20 grams. The broken surface is very fresh and yet there is staining that looks like halos of rusting around metal flecks but is more like to be the rust colored staining that sometimes appears around some of the sulfides.  I am writing to ask each of you successful hunters to take a close look at the broken surfaces on any of your fresh found specimens (preferably with magnification) to see if you can find any blueish or purple colored translucent crystals in the matrix. There might be halite in this meteorite which would be scientifically very important.  I talked with Alan Rubin about this today. He said that he had not looked for it in the piece that Rob Matson had brought for classification. Please drop me a line at etmeteorites at hotmail.com or at 503-701-3657 if you think you have found halite crystals in your fragmented specimens of Ash Creek from West, Texas.


Thanks, Edwin