[meteorite-list] New Meteorites Join Planetarium Collection In Nevada

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:27:47 2004
Message-ID: <200311131712.JAA16980_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2003/11/12/56588.php

New space rocks join planetarium collection
Lenita Powers
Reno Gazette-Journal (Nevada)
November 13, 2003

Gordon and Patricia Cave were looking for gold in northwestern Nevada last
year when the Reno couple discovered something out of this world: two
meteorites that could provide a glimpse into the beginning of our solar
system.

The Caves decided to share these tiny remnants from the core of a mammoth
asteroid with the community, so Wednesday they donated the meteorites to the
Fleischmann Planetarium at the University of Nevada, Reno.

The space rocks will join the only other four confirmed Nevada meteorites,
which are displayed in the planetarium's exhibit hall.

One of the irregular-shaped meteorites found by the Caves is less than
one-half inch in width, and the other is even smaller.

Despite their size, the teeny rocks could provide a portal into the infancy
of our planetary system, said Keith Johnson, the planetarium's associate
director.

"They're an interesting part of our solar system way back in the
neighborhood of the first 100 million years," Johnson said. "That may sound
like a long time, but it was near the beginning, so they're a sample of
what's out there that gives us information of what things were like around
the start of the solar system."

The name proposed for the two celestial rocks is "Sawtooth Knob Meteorites,"
based on the Humboldt County site northeast of Gerlach where the Caves
discovered them in a dry creek bed under 4 to 8 inches of soft desert soil.

Patricia Cave, 65 and a retired administrator of a medical billing company,
found the first specimen, which weighs 5 grams, the equivalent of about five
paper clips. Within an hour, her husband found the second, heavier 13-gram
meteorite.

"We were prospecting for gold with a metal detector when we found these odd
things," recalled Gordon Cave, a 66-year-old retired insurance broker. "We
were quite mystified as to what they were. They have a silvery appearance,
so we knew they were something unusual."

The Caves took the strange-looking lumps to David Davis of the Bureau of
Mines and Geology, who suspected they might be meteorites.

A portion of the smallest meteorite was cut off and sent for further
analysis to the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory,
where a sort of meteorite DNA test was conducted.

At the lab, the sample was irradiated and analyzed using a technique called
neutron activation, which is conducted in a nuclear reactor.

Dolores Hill, who conducted the analysis at the lunar lab, said the two
iron-nickel meteorites are "considered to be one of the magmatic irons; that
is, to have formed in the core of an asteroid approximately 375 miles in
diameter. This occurred within only 100 million years of the formation of
asteroids, or since the beginning of accretion of solid matter in the solar
system."

Only two asteroids exist today that are as large as the one that gave birth
to the most recently discovered Nevada meteorites, noted Hill, a senior
research specialist.

Analysis of the meteorite sample at the lunar lab continues, she said, "to
unravel the mysteries of its formation, chemical and thermal evolution
before it fell to Earth. We are grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Cave, who
generously donated their discoveries for current scientific study, as well
as future scientific endeavors."

Nevada's other four meteorites include two found in Nye County. The first
meteorite found in the state and the largest one is the Quinn Canyon
Meteorite found near the mouth of Quinn Canyon, Nye County, about 90 miles
east of Tonopah in 1908. It weighs more than a ton.

The second is the Quartz Mountain Meteorite, which weighs about 10 pounds
and was found about five miles southeast of Quartz Mountain, now part of the
Nellis Air Force Range.

The third is the Hot Springs Meteorite found less than 10 miles southeast of
Bradys Hot Springs in Churchill County. It weighs about 10 pounds. The
fourth is the 1-pound Majuba Meteorite found in the Majuba Placers, just
west of Rye Patch Reservoir in Pershing County. The first three were
iron-nickel types of meteorite, and the fourth was a stony-iron type.
Received on Thu 13 Nov 2003 12:12:27 PM PST