Love me some meteorites

One of my passions in life is meteorites. It is amazing that little pieces of rock can fall through the sky and land mostly unharmed on the surface of the earth, after four and a half billion years circling the sun. There are numerous myths and misunderstandings about meteorites (a popular term is meteorwrongs in the professional meteorite world). But the geochemistry of a handful of meteorites have told us more about the composition of the solar system than all of the robotic probes sent out combined. 

One of the meteorite hunter pioneers, H.H. Nininger, laid out the strategy for hunting meteorites. All things being equal, meteorites can fall anywhere on the planet's surface and the location of strewnfields is completely random. The only thing you can do to improve your odds of finding a meteorite is to find places where meteorites will be preserved, exposed close to the surface, and relatively easy to find. So, he said, look in places where there are not rocks, the ground is slowly eroding away, and where the ground will contrast with meteorites so they are easy to find. Places like Kansas and the saharan desert are ideal. 

My Mom and stepfather, Ron, have been spending their time for the past few years snowbirding in the south looking for gold nuggets with a metal detector. The by-product of their pursuit often includes finding little bits of wire, foil, bullets, and...meteorites. Aside from the handful of meteorites I have purchased, the ones they sent me from Gold Basin and at least one other location are the only sizeable meteorites I own. It is my hope to someday find one myself, but I have not had the luck, location, or time to track one down. 

Hopefully all this will change soon. When we make the move to Nevada we will be entering the land of desolate alkaline basins and slowly eroding deserts that are ideal for preserving and exposing meteorites. There are many places that meet Nininger's criteria. I look forward to the chance to take a weekend and go find a ten kilo meteorite. 

So, how do you evaluate where to find a meteorite? Well, Nininger also said that meteorites are where you find them. There is no place in particular on the planet to find more meteorites, but meteorites that break apart during their fall tend to end up on the ground in an ellipse called a strewnfield. If you find one meteorite, odds are there are a number of other meteorites from the same rock that are scattered about the area. One tool that a person can use to find strewnfields or individual meteorites is the database from the Meteoritical Society. Public information is available from the Lunar and Planetary Institute website, http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/ There are nearly 40,000 individual meteorites registered in their database. After doing a search and narrowing down your results to a state or region, the results can be plotted on google maps with labels. This is the tool I plan on using to identify a location to hunt for meteorites. 

One thing that I notice is that the large majority of the meteorites found in Nevada are in the alkaline salt flats found in the basin. Some of them are in clusters, like Bluewing and others are individuals, like Alkali. Another interesting idea is that there are many more meteorite finds reported close to Reno and Las Vegas - because these localities are easy to get to, presumably? Our new home is going to be nearly as far away from a big city as possible and nearby a salt flat. Additionally, some of the individual meteorites that could very well be part of a strewnfield are in salt flats that can be found within a few hours drive. All in all, I think we have a pretty good chance of finding one if we can approach the localities with enough time and effort to give it a good try.