how do you find meteorites

[NJnuggetpirate]

hi everyone ever since i met Steve Arnold from the meteormen i been interested in finding my own meteorites where in NJ do you think my best chance of finding one is what type of land formation is a good sign of finding one beside a burnt charred look and for anyone who actually studies them is a comet the samething as a asteroid?

 

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[Terry Soloman]

The first step is locating known falls or strewn fields in New Jersey. Land formation has NOTHING to do with where meteorites fall. We have a huge plus here on the east coast - old stone farm and pasure walls! In the 1700s and 1800s, farmers just plowed the "rocks" out of their fields and stacked them or dumped them. I have had moderate success hunting old walls and rock dumps here in New York. You MUST know what you are looking for, and what a "Fusion Crust" and "Regmaglypts" look like. You must use a manual ground balance VLF or a PI machine, and always hunt in All Metal. You also need a good Rare Earth Magnet K&J Magnetics - Strong Neodymium Magnets, Rare Earth Magnets

A Comet is NOT the same thing as an asteroid. Good Look!

 

[rickn1]

Good Place to start


Meteoritical Bulletin: Search the Database

 

[NJnuggetpirate]

The first step is locating known falls or strewn fields in New Jersey. Land formation has NOTHING to do with where meteorites fall. We have a huge plus here on the east coast - old stone farm and pasure walls! In the 1700s and 1800s, farmers just plowed the "rocks" out of their fields and stacked them or dumped them. I have had moderate success hunting old walls and rock dumps here in New York. You MUST know what you are looking for, and what a "Fusion Crust" and "Regmaglypts" look like. You must use a manual ground balance VLF or a PI machine, and always hunt in All Metal. You also need a good Rare Earth Magnet K&J Magnetics - Strong Neodymium Magnets, Rare Earth Magnets

A Comet is NOT the same thing as an asteroid. Good Look!

I know what the iron ones look like

 

[NJnuggetpirate]

I know what the iron ones look like

Also the stony, and stony iron ones too

 

[NJnuggetpirate]

I know what the iron ones look like

And the stony, stony irons too what do all the letters stand for like say L35 what's that mean

 

[Charl]

The only meteorite known from NJ is Deal, which fell 5 miles SW of Long Branch in 1829. It's an L6 and to the best of my knowledge less then 50 grams survives in institutional collections. L just means it's lower in iron, H means higher. The numbers express the degree of processing the material underwent after it's initial formation. The higher the number, the further from it's original state. You really need to learn from the ground up, and not in snippets. Plenty of good books and google will bring you many sites, besides anything that might be a sticky in this category of TNet. TNet is a great site. For meteorites in particular, you might also consider this forum, run by Geoff Notkin, the other gentleman from Meteorite Men.

Club Space Rock - Meteorites and Meteorite Hunting

Your best bet, since you like to metal detect and have experience there, is to hook up, if at all possible, with someone in Arizona and hunt a known strewn field like Gold Basin. Arizona, and California and Nevada dry lakes, are your best bet if you really want to find one in your lifetime. NJ is about the worse terrane imaginable for cold meteorite hunting. As is the Northeast in general. One did fall recently in Connecticut. 2 stones found, both hit houses. May very well be more out there and there is at least one person looking hard. He already has pieces from the first stone because he was quick enough to beat everyone to the homeowner and bought a few fragments.
So, observed falls are different. Have to just beat a track to the strewn field if it's known, as all the lucky folks in Western Siberia just did with the historic fall there.

Don't want to discourage, but you've got a snowball's chance in Hades of finding a meteorite cold hunting NJ. The odds are truly stacked against you. But you can try, and if it gets to be something that you need to check off a bucket list:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-to-find-a-meteorite-in-5-steps

 

[NJnuggetpirate]

what about VA MD or PA

 

[Charl]

what about VA MD or PA

Unless it's a witnessed fall, in which case there will be a hundred or more collectors scouring the location within days, the eastern US has the wrong climate for old falls to last long, and all the wrong terrane- urban, forest, etc. if you want to find one in your lifetime, go west young man!

 

[NJnuggetpirate]

Unless it's a witnessed fall, in which case there will be a hundred or more collectors scouring the location within days, the eastern US has the wrong climate for old falls to last long, and all the wrong terrane- urban, forest, etc. if you want to find one in your lifetime, go west young man!

Lol how far west