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Re: Old Woman meteorite

<< Most of the "Old Woman" is on display at the BLM Way Station in Barstow.

Interesting timing - I just visited the "California Desert Information Center"
this past Friday on my way to Las Vegas for a little "R&R".  The "Old Woman"
is indeed displayed there.  The flyer one can read about the meteorite is
published by the 
BLM, and, as one might expect, it provides a highly sanitized version of the
legal
saga: 
"Since the Old Woman meteorite was located on public land managed by
the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the prospectors filed a mining claim on
the site.  To their disappointment, they learned that meteorites are not
locatable
minerals as defined by the mining laws.  Under the conditions of the
Antiquities Act, a meteorite found on federal government land is considered an
object of national scientific interest.  It, therefore, became an artifact of
the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C."

 <>

The only allusion to the above on this flyer (although, in fairness, I guess
one could not really expect them to go into any great scientific detail on a
handout) is the following:

"In March 1978, the Old Woman meteorite went to the Smithsonian Institute
in Washington DC for study and display.  They removed a section weighing
942 pounds (427 kg) and closely examined it to find out its chemical makeup,
mineral content, and rare gas content.  The internal structure appears as a
variation
between two well-known types of metallic (sic!) meteorites that were never
seen together before.  These studies suggest that this meteorite may be quite
rare and
one of a kind."

Yeah, nothing like those "one-of-a-kind" coarse octahedrites....
Gregory