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Locating Meteors

B

Buddy555

New member
Greetings Fellow Searchers:

My name is Bill and I have been occasionally coin shooting since the early '70's. I have used Whites and Fishers. Now that I am older and hopefully wiser, I'd like to become a Meteor Man. Who has any knowledge or experience with the subject and can suggest the best device for the money to locate them?

Thanks,
Bill
 
As I understand it, meteors have been visiting the earth since its origin...millions and millions of years. They are everywhere on the earth's surface. The deeper ones are the older and larger ones that are down 5 to 20 feet average. Anything past 5 feet you better have a backhoe handy.
 
I was told and read the same thing in fact they supposedly say that so many have hit the earth science beginning of time there should be one about every five feet i don't think i found one yet but will try this year.Acording to book on xlt they should come in between -84 to -95 on vid have to start checking need to get a small magnet to see if it stick to the rock good starting point
 
Google "finding meteorites".......tons of info. Here is one http://www.novaspace.com/METEOR/Find.html
 
I didn't know astronauts sold autograph Astronaut Central Signings and Events i found it on one of the links,every one wants to make a buck:clap:
 
A meteor appears when a meteoroid -- a piece of hard material -- enters the Earth's atmosphere from outer space. The Earth's atmosphere is all of the air that surrounds our planet. Air rubs against the meteoroid and heats it. This makes it glow. Most meteors glow for only about a second before they leave a shining trail.

Meteoroids usually break up into tiny pieces before reaching the Earth. Meteoroids that reach the Earth are called meteorites. Meteorites reach the Earth because they are the right size to travel through the atmosphere. If they are too small, they break up. If they are too big, they may explode. Most meteorites are quite small, about the size of a pebble.
 
Since meteorites are mostly iron they should fall in the high minus VDI numbers.

If you find a rock that sounds like iron, is heavy (compared to other rocks) and is magnetic you probably have one.
 
Pics of what are not meteors and to links to different sources http://meteorites.wustl.edu/meteorwrongs/meteorwrongs.htm
 
Here's my story so far...

I did some research and have found web sites that show all the meteorite falls thru the last 100 years or so. Every state is listed and dates of the falls. I checked out my own state and found that four counties close to me had three falls in the last 100 years. I checked out info on the falls from other sources, these falls were of the stoney type, not heavy iron. This makes finding this type as hard a finding a needle in a haystack. But while out looking for arrowheads I found a dark rock with thumbprinting (one of the clues) about two inches long. I checked all the meteorwrong pics and it did not match them, so I did more research and found out only about 1% of stoney meteorites are non-magnetic, makes it even harder to tell if real or not. Took it to the Geology Department at a Local University to get checked. They did the magnet test, of course it failed, they did a scratch test on tile and the Professor said " humm, never saw that before". He drew the stone across the tile and it made a black mark, then once more and nothing. The fusion crust left the black mark, but the stone under the fusion crust did not leave a mark. Earth rocks will leave red-brown marks on the tile...Conculsion from the University was "we can't tell", so.........I took it to a bigger University which does more tests, yes they did the magnet and the tile tests, now they are doing a complete analysis of the rock and it has been sent to the lab. No results back yet.

If you are looking for iron meteorites get yourself a Infinium L/S by Garrett, Iron check will help locate what you are looking for.

Bottom line, look where other meteorites have fallen, check directions of strun fields, get permission to hunt, take a good magnet with you, and get an Infinium. In my case it was just looking in an erosion area and spotting the dark fusion encrustation and thumbprinting. Look at plenty of photos of stoney, stoney-iron, and iron types of meteorites. Maybe I have found a rare one, maybe not , but it sure is fun when you stump the egg headed professors! Will keep ya updated good or bad when we get the lab results.

3Qtr
 
I personally do not recommend the use of the disc mode when hunting for meteorites. So, forget the VDI numbers except for maybe some reference, when hunting meteorites if you want to be successful. Hunting meteorites is much like hunting ferrous junk, since all fall in the metal or ground signal area or range

Meteorites come in different types from what are called stony types to stony iron to iron types. Stony iron and iron types will act much like a piece of iron so depending upon the size and shape can read all over the spectrum.

Stony types have a wide range closer to the ground signals, but still a positive signal when the detector is ground balanced and operating in the all metal mode. Stonies can vary from mild signals to fairly strong responses from the same size meteorite. If you read up on them, you will find they range from L types to H types all of which will respond quite differently.

Stony type have a mild to medium strong attraction to a super magnet, while iron and stony iron have a strong attraction much like a regular piece of iron.

With the stony type the far most common, maybe 95% or so of those one can detect, it is best to set out to find one of them. Iron and stony iron are quite rare, which accounts for why they are more valuable.

If you watch the various shows on hunting meteorites, you will see they dig a lot of iron in their search. Actually, you don't see just how much junk they do dig. The reason is simple, there is no foolproof way to tell a meteorite from the other ferrous junk.

To get an idea of what to expect, it helps to pick up a few different types of meteorites to see just how they do respond. Keep in mind that the signal will change with size, so what you do experience is not going to necessarily be the same as what you will get from a different type or size of meteorite.

I don't claim to be an expert but I have experimented with several different types and have found quite a few stony types at Gold Basin and a couple of small ones over by Vulture Peak. I have also hunted for them using quite a range of detectors from VLF's to PI's.

Reg
 
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