[meteorite-list] Man Claims Rockhaven Meteorite Find

[dorifry]

Or maybe it's just Buzzard Coulee:

Phil Whitmer
Joshua Tree Earth & Space Museum
-----------------------------------

Man claims meteorite find

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/technology/claims+meteorite+find/6207355/story.html


A man claims to have found the first known meteorites from a fireball that 
lit up the sky over Saskatchewan and Alberta Tuesday night.

A posting on Kijiji shows two roundish and blackened rocks a man says he 
found on the side of a highway north of Rockhaven. One of the rocks is 
listed for sale for an unspecified price and the other rock is shown 
suspended by a magnet.

Now geologists and astronomers who study meteorites are trying to get in 
touch with the man in an attempt to verify whether the rocks are connected 
to Tuesday's meteor sighting, which rattled houses as it zoomed over North 
Battleford.

Richard Huziak, a Saskatoon amateur astronomer and member of the Prairie 
Fireball Network, says the rocks in the picture look like chondrites, which 
match meteorites found after the Buzzard Coulee meteor crashed in central 
Saskatchewan in 2008.

Several researchers are trying to get in touch with the man - 
unsuccessfully, so far - in an effort to bring the rocks to the University 
of Saskatchewan for examination and testing.

"Until they're presented, it's hard to know what fall they came from," 
Huziak said. They may well be meteorites, he said, but ones that fell years 
ago.

U of S geologist Mel Stauffer is also trying to get in touch with the man in 
an effort to check the rocks' authenticity. "The photograph he posted on 
Kijiji looks to be of a meteorite," Stauffer said in an email.

University of Calgary geoscientist Alan Hildebrand, who co-ordinates the 
Canadian Fireball Reporting Centre, said anyone who has found a meteorite 
and wants to sell it would be wise to have experts identify it first. Some 
meteorites are more rare - and therefore far more valuable - than others.

"We have foolproof ways of telling if it's a recent fall or not," Hildebrand 
added.

When contacted by The StarPhoenix, the man behind the Kijiji ad was not 
willing to have his name or photograph in the paper.

Faye Rowat, one of a handful of residents in the tiny settlement of 
Rockhaven, said there have been a few people out searching the area since 
Tuesday's fireball. On Friday morning, she was about to head out with some 
magnets and her two grandsons, the youngest of which was enthused about the 
chance of coming across a space rock.

"It's a free gift from the asteroid belt," Huziak said. "We can build 
spaceships for a hundred million dollars and go out and get pieces. Or they 
can just fall to the Earth and we can pick them up. Each rock tells you a 
bit more about the origin of the solar system and they all date back to the 
age of the formation of the Earth, or even before that."

Both Huziak and Hildebrand said several new videos have surfaced in the past 
couple of days that are allowing them to narrow down the location of the 
so-called "strewn field" where pieces fell, which they say is likely south 
of Rockhaven. The hamlet is about 190 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon.

Huziak said several explosions are visible in the video footage, suggesting 
pieces broke off the meteor higher up and may have survived the fall to 
Earth.

Security camera footage from the Corman Air Park shows an intensely bright 
greenish ball that appears for just a second, hurtling towards the ground, 
leaving a brief trail of yellow sparks in its wake.

Hildebrand said he wants to see more footage of that night from different 
locations, including cameras that were pointed at the ground and captured 
flashes of light and objects' shadows. More footage from different angles 
could help them narrow the crash site down to a dozen square kilometres and 
would result in a more fruitful meteorite search, he said.

"We're not there yet."

Would-be rock hunters should also know there's an etiquette to abide by. You 
can legally remove a rock you find on public land, but a meteorite sitting 
in a farmer's field belongs to him and if you remove it without permission, 
you are trespassing, Huziak said.

On Thursday, one aspiring meteorite hunter put out a call on Lloydminster's 
Kijiji page looking for Rockhaven-area landowners' permission to search on 
their property. "Will pay for access & split 50/50," the post says.

Huziak hopes people in the Rockhaven area are keeping an eye out for 
blackened rocks, which should be easily spotted on frozen ponds and against 
the backdrop of snow.

"It's good for everyone to be out looking, because if there's a 
serendipitous discovery, we all benefit from it," he said.

Sadly for meteorite hunters, this weekend's weather outlook is not 
favourable - a storm warning with five to 10 centimetres of snow, wind 
gusting to 70 kilometres an hour and poor visibility is forecast for 
Saturday.

-With files from Lana Haight

jfrench at thestarphoenix.com

© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix


Read more: 
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/technology/claims+meteorite+find/6207355/story.html#ixzz1nPf7eAQN