(meteorobs) Follow-up: A New Big Meteorite

[CHRISTINECissy at aol.com]

Looks like they found one and and rare at that! 
Clear skies, 
Christine 
_http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/10/16/meteorite.kansas.ap/index.html_ 
(http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/10/16/meteorite.kansas.ap/index.html)  
GREENSBURG, Kansas (AP) -- Scientists located a rare meteorite in a  wheat 
field thanks to new ground penetrating radar technology that someday might  be 
used on Mars. 
The dig in Kansas Monday was likely the most documented excavation yet of a  
meteorite find, with researchers painstakingly using brushes and hand tools in 
 order to preserve evidence of the impact trail and to date the event of the  
meteorite strike. Soil samples were also bagged and tagged, and organic 
material  preserved for dating purposes. 
Even before they had the meteorite out of the ground, the scientific experts  
at the site were able to debunk prevailing wisdom that the spectacular 
meteorite  fall of Brenham, Kansas, occurred 20,000 years ago. Its location in the  
Pleistocene epoch soil layer puts that date closer to 10,000 years ago. 
"We know it is recent," said Carolyn Sumners, director of Astronomy at the  
Houston Museum of Natural Science, as she surveyed progress on the dig. "Native 
 Americans could have seen it." 
The scientific expedition of the meteorite strewn field in western Kansas was 
 put together by the Houston Museum of Natural Science and led by meteorite  
hunters Steve Arnold and Philip Mani. Johnson Space Center's Lunar and 
Planetary  Institute, the Rice Space Institute at Rice University and George 
Observatory in  Houston also sent researchers. 
Fewer than 1 percent of the meteorites discovered on earth are pallasite  
meteorites, known for their crystals embedded in iron, Mani said. 
Sophisticated metal detectors at the site initially detected what had been  
thought to be the largest pallasite meteorite ever discovered. But ground  
penetrating radar showed that object to be a steel cable. 
But with about a dozen potential targets on the site, the team still  
uncovered a sizeable pallasite buried four feet (1.2-meter) under the ground and  
located a quarter of a mile (0.4 kilometers) from where Arnold and Mani found  
the world's largest pallasite meteorite a year ago. 
The newest find weighs 154 pounds (70 kilograms). 
The Brenham field was discovered in 1882. Scientists have since traced pieces 
 of the shower as far away as Indian mounds in Ohio, indicating the 
meteorites  were traded as pieces of jewelry and ceremonial artifacts. The site was 
largely  forgotten in recent decades until Arnold and Mani leased eight square 
miles (20  square kilometers) of it and began looking deep below the surface. 
More than 15,000 pounds (6,800 kilograms) of meteorites have been recovered  
from the Brenham fall, with about a third of them found by the two men in the  
past year, Mani said. About three dozen meteorites have been pulled from the  
field by their Brenham Meteorite Co.