Anyone collecting meteorites??

Outbackmanyep · #1 06-02-2008, 01:15 PM

As i have an interest in lapidary circles, i have also been collecting meteorites....

Im interested to hear from anyone else who has also collected some!

For those that haven't it can be expensive but getting started is a cinch, the more common varieties are being sold around $20 to $30 mark, i have severala including Sikhote-Alin Iron and Canyon Diabolo iron, a pallasite which is Brahin, and a few others, i'll add some pics soon!

Storm coming!!!

Cheers!

MrB (Simon) · #2 06-02-2008, 02:10 PM

I've always wanted to go somewhere and try hunting, but don't really know what to look for!

Garyh · #3 06-02-2008, 02:12 PM

Hi,
Yeah I am a bit of a mineral collector myself and have a few meteorites and tektites as well. Sikhote-Alin a Gibeon a Gao-Guenie and Mundrabilla and Tektites from various localities..

Last holidays spent a few days looking for tektites..sure was fun! but the flies,,

drove us nuts. I love to collect more but they are so expensive when you get a little weight in them.
Now I would love to find a flanged button.

cheers

Outbackmanyep · #4 06-02-2008, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garyh

Hi,
Yeah I am a bit of a mineral collector myself and have a few meteorites and tektites as well. Sikhote-Alin a Gibeon a Gao-Guenie and Mundrabilla and Tektites from various localities..

Last holidays spent a few days looking for tektites..sure was fun! but the flies,,

drove us nuts. I love to collect more but they are so expensive when you get a little weight in them.
Now I would love to find a flanged button.

cheers

I know that Tektites can be found in and around Uralla's creeks and river systems, i haven't found any but i know of one person who found a button tektite at Uralla Fossicking Area (i think it was, i'll double check my source).
Not much in that fossicking area but it's open to the public still.

I also was given 2 Henbury fragments which i have yet to mount, send in a couple of piccies if you can GaryH

Outbackmanyep · #5 06-02-2008, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrB

I've always wanted to go somewhere and try hunting, but don't really know what to look for!

Hi there,
Meteorites have different characteristics from earthly minerals, meteorites usually have a dark black exterior from ablation from atmospheric entry. Iron meteorites are black and unusually heavy, and have regmaglypts (like dents) in the outer surface. There is no set pattern in which to find them, they can be found anywhere! I have a book that shows "Australites" ie: tektites, found in the desert regions of SA , NT and WA.

Stony Meteorites have the same ablative appearance, but their granular make-up consist of Chondrules. Chondrules are rounded silicate grains formed in the early solar nebula....so if you find a stone with a jet black exterior, check for signs of ablation and make note of the find, photographs in situ and geometric position etc. Then get onto your nearest university geology dept to have it tested!
If the stone is broken then a low power magnifying glass or loupe will be needed to see if it consists of rounded silicate grains.
There are hundreds of different variations of Iron, Stony and Stony-Iron meteorites. I wouldn't advise busting up a find as it can decrease its scientific and monetary value quite significantly!

But its far easier to buy them than to find one!!!
You can attend gem shows and usually you'll find someone with them, i am going to Minerama in Glen Innes NSW and there is a guy from Victoria that sells meteorites there....they can range from 15 to 20 dollars to 500+ dollars......depending on their rarity and size!

Cheers!

Peter Ward · #6 06-02-2008, 03:41 PM

I have a Mundrabilla Iron. It is quite a nice specimen. About the size of a grapefruit and weighs 2700g. What I would like to find is someone who can slice it in two and etch it.

Cheers
Peter

MrB (Simon) · #7 06-02-2008, 03:51 PM

Cheers for the info.
I have tried to find some shiny black rocks, problem is, in some area's of WA there are literally millions of them... one foot would be stepping on more than 100.
They're as you describe, jet black and a kinda smooth polished look and kinda heavy for their size.
I figured they couldn't be meteorites so must be some other type of rock(volcanic?).

To me, buying doesn't have the same appeal as being the first human to touch something so ancient that has arrived here from space as a fireball.

EDIT: cheers Jeanette.

jjjnettie (Jeanette) · #8 06-02-2008, 03:52 PM

Here's a link to BallaratDragons (Ken James) web site. It has a small article on how to collect micrometeorites.
http://astroken.bravehost.com/astrokenfacts.html

leon · #9 06-02-2008, 04:44 PM

Gee Peter that is a heavy grapefruit,

did you miss the decimal point....

Leon

Opp's sorry Peter, my mistake I thought it read 2700KG's

Garyh · #10 06-02-2008, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Outbackmanyep

I know that Tektites can be found in and around Uralla's creeks and river systems, i haven't found any but i know of one person who found a button tektite at Uralla Fossicking Area (i think it was, i'll double check my source).
Not much in that fossicking area but it's open to the public still.

I also was given 2 Henbury fragments which i have yet to mount, send in a couple of piccies if you can GaryH

Yeah I have heard that Rocky creek? is a good spot to find one if you are lucky

I shall pull out the camera in the morning and post a few pics but I don`t have any the size that Peter has..

I love going to Minerama at Glen Innes..

thou I missed last years

.
I usually get some nice stuff from some bushies from Torrington!
cheers
MrB, you will recognize one if you see it. I found my first tektite in WA while metal detecting and there was plenty of iron stone pebbles around it and I had to pick it up for a closer look and on turning it over seeing those flow lines and ridges I knew what I had!

The last trip my wife kept bringing me every dark stone she found which I told her to do and after a hundred or so there was a tektite and a nice core it is..
cheers Gary

skwinty (Steve) · #11 06-02-2008, 08:29 PM

Hi All
You folks in Oz are lucky! In south Africa it is illegal to collect meteorites. According to legislation all meteorites belong to the state.
Probably just as well as the Hoba meteorite might not still be where it currently is.
Regards
Steve

space oddity · #12 06-02-2008, 08:55 PM

Cutting meteorites is a difficult business. If they get too hot, it will remelt the iron and you will lose the nice grain pattern. The Bathurst observatory (Ray Piccard) is the only person I know who cuts them. It is an expensive exercise.He also can get a superior polish for you - some of my sliced specimens from Ebay could have been polished a bit better. The Campo slice in his collection is part payment for slicing one of my specimens. Lapidiary cutters will have trouble too - diamond blades will be destroyed. Collecting meteorites in WA and NT I think is a problem, from what I gather, the meteorites belong to the state. I have a bit of a collection, ranging from a small Martian basalt, through to a few stony specimens, pallasite, Sikhote-Alin, Nantan and "The Beast" - a 19 1/2 pound Campo del Cielo. Some say I have rocks in my head.

Night Owl · #13 06-02-2008, 09:15 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_myc4Smu1M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz4i7MPDfn0&NR=1

The string is attached to a magnet!

OneOfOne (Trevor) · #14 07-02-2008, 08:21 AM

"Technically" I think collecting meteorites is illegal in all of Australia, unless you have a license.

Actually, literally just 5 minutes ago I made the final payment on my 24lb Campo del Cielo! It is a present for my 50th in late March. I couldn't resist it as it looks just like a squashed map of Australia!

http://www.arizonaskiesmeteorites.co...mpo/index.html

They even sell teeth from T Rex and other little goodies!

A couple of other sites that I have found on my searches are:
http://www.rocksonfire.com/home.html
http://www.spacerocksuk.com/

Outbackmanyep · #15 07-02-2008, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

I have a Mundrabilla Iron. It is quite a nice specimen. About the size of a grapefruit and weighs 2700g. What I would like to find is someone who can slice it in two and etch it.

Cheers
Peter

Peter, maybe talk to a University Geology Dept, maybe they can help!!
I know they use nitric acid for etching but in what concentration i have no idea. I know a fellow at University Of New England who is a geologist, i could contact him if you wish, PM me if you want to follow it up!

Outbackmanyep · #16 07-02-2008, 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garyh

Yeah I have heard that Rocky creek? is a good spot to find one if you are lucky

I shall pull out the camera in the morning and post a few pics but I don`t have any the size that Peter has..

I love going to Minerama at Glen Innes..

thou I missed last years

.
I usually get some nice stuff from some bushies from Torrington!
cheers
MrB, you will recognize one if you see it. I found my first tektite in WA while metal detecting and there was plenty of iron stone pebbles around it and I had to pick it up for a closer look and on turning it over seeing those flow lines and ridges I knew what I had!

The last trip my wife kept bringing me every dark stone she found which I told her to do and after a hundred or so there was a tektite and a nice core it is..
cheers Gary

Yes Gary, the Rocky River holds some tektites, the Rocky is an extension of the Gwydir river....as for Torrington it's a gem hunters haven!!!

As for Minerama, last years was not as good as the year before, there were more jewellery items being sold than crystals or faceting rough....

Kokatha man · #17 07-02-2008, 02:27 PM

Hi all - reading this thread reminds me of when I once worked on a gang buiding small footbridges: everyone had the obligatory names; from "Ace" the foreman - who was allways fiddling with the deck(ing) down to me, aka "Rock Hunter" - the very un-Hollywood looking "go-fer" who collected the stone ballast.

Seriously though, your posts also reminded me of collecting on the Nullabor, of what we called australites: black gravel-like chips of stone that when held to strong light revealed themselves as dark green glassy material, one form of meteorite. There were also the metallic types mentioned here but they were far outnumbered by the "glassy types (or maybe these were just more easily identifiable/findable.)

I have (somewhere) a couple from those long-ago collectings; also a beautiful "basalt"(?) type one that is circular (around the size of a 20cent piece) with a convex face on one side and concave-convex on the other (ie, initially from the outside "rim" it is concave and then towards the centre has a convex profile: I was told that this is the shape it assumed whilst in a plastic state from heating as it plunged through the atmosphere. This one is approx 15mm thick.

Fascinating stuff - and apropos the cutting and etching, whilst never having worked on meteorites I possess professional/technical skills in metal-work and etching along with having been a practising jeweller for a number of years: with etching I have completed very major commissions using a variety of innovative combined techniques.

Which is to say after all the self-praise (!?!) that I would be more than happy to give anyone my two-bobs' worth should they want to discuss possibilities in these areas. I will link my web-site in the near-future to a forth-coming IIS post, where examples of my etching can be seen.

Regards, Darryl.
ps - nitric acid is usually considered too aggressive for etching ferrous materials, though the presence of nickel et al may further complicate things: but there are a number of mordants plus other techniques that are available.....

Sar1244 (Sarah) · #18 02-02-2017, 12:00 PM

Can any one tell me if this is meteorite I have done meteorite step by step test and it passed all steps

astroron (Ron) · #19 02-02-2017, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sar1244

Can any one tell me if this is meteorite I have done meteorite step by step test and it passed all steps

Hi Sara, welcome to iceinspace.

It seems you might be a lucky girl

But just to include us in your find
could you add a picture.
Cheers

AussieTrooper (Ben) · #20 03-02-2017, 09:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skwinty

Hi All
You folks in Oz are lucky! In south Africa it is illegal to collect meteorites. According to legislation all meteorites belong to the state.
Probably just as well as the Hoba meteorite might not still be where it currently is.
Regards
Steve

Similar here. Whilst you can collect them, sales of Australian meteorites are technically prohibited.
That said, I doubt the rule is enforced very often, so you won't have much trouble buying one.