Mr-Meteorite
Adventures in Meteorite Hunting
Meteorite Field I.D. (part 1)
by Ruben Garcia
It’s inevitable. Someone reads one of my articles or views a few of my meteorite hunting videos and asks the question. What type of metal detector is best for finding meteorites? The short answer is: just about any good “gold machine” made by Whites, Fisher or Mine Lab will work just fine for most meteorites. However, the better answer is much more detailed and requires a lot more from a would-be meteorite hunter than just spending a few hundred dollars for a metal detector.
Since the people that are most likely to ask this question are newbie’s, it’s fair to say that they assume meteorite hunting is nothing more than turning on a metal detector and picking up space rocks. Nothing could be further from the truth. Finding galactic gold consistently is one of the hardest things a person can do. It requires months if not years of studying, field work, and lots trial and error. If the pros make meteorite hunting look easy it’s only because they’ve put may years into learning the art. Don’t be fooled, it is not easy to find a meteorite!
Here are the two main rules that any meteorite hunter must adhere to if they are to find even a single meteorite. First, a meteorite hunter must go to where meteorites are likely to be found. Second, once there, a meteorite hunter must be able to recognize a meteorite. These rules sound logical and simple and they are, however, easy to do, they are not.
Where Are Meteorites Found?
Even though meteorites fall uniformly across the globe they don’t last long in areas with a large amount of yearly rainfall. Therefore it makes sense that if a newly fallen meteorite isn’t recovered within a few months it is likely to be buried under mud or covered over by plant growth. In such a scenario even skilled meteorite hunters using metal detectors would have a difficult time unearthing the meteorite. The reason for this is that unless the meteorite in question is of the iron or stony iron variety a metal detector will have trouble detecting it. This is because many stony meteorites - which make up the large majority of meteorites that fall – may not have a high enough nickel iron content to set off a metal detector - at least not when separated by a eight or more inches of dirt or weeds.
Where do you think meteorites are easier to find?
Dry Lake Bed? Forest?
For all the reasons stated above plus many that are not, meteorite hunters will usually try looking for meteorites in arid areas with little vegetation. Deserts and dry lake beds are obvious targets, but there are other areas that a good meteorite hunter will not overlook. These are areas where meteorites have fallen and been recovered in the past. More and more meteorite hunters are looking to the past to find meteorites in long forgotten strewn fields. A few times a meteorite hunter has - with a large amount of research - found much more than was found when the meteorite was originally discovered. A good example of this is the work that meteorite hunter Steve Arnold has just completed in
Meteorite Detectors?
As mentioned above a good top of the line gold machine is what most meteorite hunters use in their quest to collect these cosmic visitors we call meteorites. However, one must not overlook the hundreds of hours that they put into learning the subtleties of their particular machine. Every metal detector is different and has its own strengths and weaknesses. However, the pros never rely on just the squeal of a metal detector to know if they found a meteorite.
Visual meteorite I.D. in the field is the key. This is because even the best metal detectors in the world will only tell you if the rock in question has enough mineralization to set it off. There is no such thing as a meteorite detector. To make matters worse there is a large percentage of worthless earth rocks that will make a metal detector sound off. This type of rock is known as a “hot rock”. Therefore one can see how using only a metal detector to find a meteorite among a sea of hot rocks can be an impossible task.
However, If a good metal detector is what you want here are the three best candidates for gold and meteorites.
Minelab 3000 - About $3000 Whites GMT - About $800 Fisher Gold Bug 2 - About $800
Minelab 3000 Whites GMT Fisher Gold Bug 2
