JimR said:
No need to go to Arizona, where I live. I have hunted Gold Basin and found 45 meteorites there. I have to tell you that I'm almost positive those are old, weathered stony meteorites you have found. The picture on the left displays a dark round chondrule (sphere) which is not found in terrestrial rocks. To be sure, take a file or a piece of sandpaper and grind a small "window in a corner of the stones. If you see flecks of bright silvery metal you can be sure they are meteorites. Also, the fact that they are magnetic is a good, but not conclusive find. If you want to be sure send it to a university that classifies meteorites. You may get your name in the next Meteoritical Bulletin for a new find! I don't think there have been that many from W. Va. Great finds!
Jim
I've never been interested in meteorites before, but this year I'm finding them more and more interesting. The pictures I posted were the same rock just trying different angles.
Now, I didn't keep these because I knew they were meteorites, but I did keep them because I Thought they may be and the fact that they are very different from the rest of the small rocks around here. At this time I have found four of what I Think may be meteorites.
The first one I found actually has a melted bullet shape on one end of it, they all look burnt and all of them has enough iron content for them to stick to a magnet, the bullet shape seems to be the highest in iron because of how strong its pulled to the magnet.
The next then that's odd about them is all of them were found on a golf course, but not the same one.
I live in what was at one time a golf course back in the early 70's.
The others I found at another local golf course which olny closed maybe three or four years ago. The club house sets on top of a hill, off to one side was the pro-shop, on the back of the pro-shop was a caddy bench which was right on the crest of the hill. The caddies played coin toss and small change poker waiting to be hired by a golfer. My older brother used to caddy there back in the early 60's. He thought the face of the hill just below the bench would be full of coins. Well we did find some coins there but nothing to write home about, but on that face of the hill is where I found the other possible meteorites.
The one I found in my yard was all by itself! I was running my 1266X pretty much wide open getting stuff out of the ground in a small area so I could plant me a nickle test garden. So, if it were slag, or some other normal rock for my area then I would think less of it, but its a loner.
I was going to take some pictures of all four of them but when I got my camera out the battery was dead! as soon as it charges up a bit I will post pictures all of them and see what kinid of feedback I get.
These are not very big,
Two of the smallest ones are more round and about the size of a pencil eraser (the ones mounted a-top a wooden pencil)
The bullet shaped one is about the size of an almond (nut) and even has a similar shape.
The one I found in my yard is the biggest, but that's not very big, its about the size of a piece of 1/2" limestone gravel.
For now I have decided to save all these funny little stones I find and just collect them, who know maybe some day I'll find one that is worth a couple thousand dollars. I would like to find a way to verify them if I could.
Mark
