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(meteorobs) Old Woman meteorite
Hi Dave,
> From time to time we get on the subject of locating meteorites and I've
> always wanted to relate a story that was in one of my older California
> Mining Journals from the '70s after I found it again so I could give more
> details, but I have a hundred or so CMJs and not the time to search for it
so
> from memory and while the subject is hot.....
If you pick up a copy of Rocks From Space (Norton), the
full story is in there.
> Two prospectors found a very large meteorite on federal lands in the
> '70s.
Actually, it was (and is) the largest meteorite ever
found in the state of California. It's called "The Old
Woman", and was found in the Old Woman Mountains.
> Recognizing the potencial value for their find they put a placer claim
> on the site which was open for mining claims. A placer claim is a legal
> claim for loose minerals not part of the parent rock but in the overburden
> of the area, the meteorite would have been "placer" material. They
> removed it with a crane ...
Actually, that was part of the problem. They *couldn't*
move it themselves. It was in rocky, uneven terrain. Only
a helicopter would work -- a military helicopter. Since
they didn't have the working capital to pay for the
military extraction, they went another route.
> ... and notified everyone that they had a very large meteroite for sale,
> about a ton. Folks from some prestigious scientific organization in
> Washington, DC, came and looked at it and claimed it for the
> government, without payment to the miners.
It was a little more complicated than this -- both the
Smithsonian and the BLM got involved. Smithsonian invoked
the Mining Act of 18-something-or-other, basically arguing
that meteorites fall under the same category as dinosaur
fossils, Native American artifacts and other items of
unique scientific value. Thus "mining rights" did not
apply. It was the government's meteorite, irrespective
of who found it.
> All attempts to get payment for the huge meteorite were lost ...
The two finders wanted about a million dollars for it.
The government actually offered them a tiny fraction of
this, and when the finders balked, the government basically
said take it or leave it. They decided to leave it, and
thus got nothing.
>, so we have a moral to this tale of thievery, if you find a really big
meteorite
> worth lots of money maybe it isn't best to tell exactly where you found
it.
In hindsight, a better approach by these two would have been
to keep the location of the meteorite secret, and inform the
Smithsonian (or whomever) that they knew the location of
an extremely large and valuable meteorite ("look, here's
a picture of it"), and negotiate the sale of the location
information. If they didn't like the offer, no deal. By
revealing the location, they lost any leverage they had.
> These guys were robed by the government of a valuable find they had
> legally claimed under our mining laws.
Actually, a good lawyer could probably have argued that
meteorites are fundamentally different from fossils (e.g.
they are a renewable resource), and at the very least the
meteorite could be split between the finders and the
government. (Unlike fossils, meteorites can be divided
with minimal loss of scientific or monetary value.)
For those interested, you can see the Old Woman meteorite
in Barstow (minus the large slice that the Smithsonian cut
off prior to sending the meteorite back to California.)
Best,
Rob
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