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Re: (meteorobs) Re: what does a meteorite look like?
Dave,
As a scientist I have no sympathy for the miners in your story as you seem
to have. If it was actually "stolen" then their lawyer could have gotten
back. Such a piece of property belongs in the hands of research.
clear skies,
Terry
>>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.....
>
> Two prospectors found a very large meteorite on federal lands in the
>'70s. 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 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. They brought federal
>marshals and removed it. All attempts to get payment for the huge
>meteorite were lost, 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. These guys were robed by the government of a
>valuable find they had legally claimed under our mining laws. That's as I
>remember it, maybe I'll look it up and give names and dates, location of the
>find, the "scientist" from the Smithsonian and the size of the meteorite.
>
> Dave English
> Oceanside, California
>
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Terry Richardson
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Terry Richardson
Department of Physics and Astronomy
College of Charleston
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