[meteorite-list] Oman trip story

From: Norman Lehrman <nlehrman_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Mar 21 13:24:56 2005
Message-ID: <20050314052934.66608.qmail_at_web81004.mail.yahoo.com>

One more "thank you!", Eric.

When we reflect that just a few short years ago,
before Nininger began his audacious quest, such a
story was unthinkable. Now we can sort through boxes
of meteorites at absurddly low prices, but shouldn't
forget that every single bit has a story behind it,
the thrilling exhiliaration of a discovery
moment---This is all part of the magic of the rock.

What a fine addition to a piece to have such a story!
All finders should consider it their sacred obligation
to record the details of the moment when human eyes
first saw and recognized the space traveler. The
story should go with the specimen like a label. We
all love Nininger pieces because we have read his
story and can read a little between the lines whenever
one bears his label. To me, Nantan is vastly enhanced
by the ancient description of its fall.

It is sad when we hold a marvelous stone in our hands
and can't recite the story behind it! Often (with
NWA's) there's nothing more to be had. But there
should NEVER be a piece from the world that can read
and understand this commentary that lacks a detailed
written story!

Enough for tonight-- Thanks again for doing it right
Eric.

Norm
(http://TektiteSource.com)


--- star-bits_at_comcast.net wrote:

> Everybody seems to enjoy meteorite hunting
> tales so here is one from my just completed trip to
> Oman with Mike Farmer and Jim Strope. It was a
> good trip for me. I found a HUGE piece of Mike's
> lunar, a whopping 3.1 grams. OK, OK, maybe not
> huge, and not too pretty with none of the white
> clasts showing in Mike's either, but I found it and
> it is all mine ;-)). Not for sale until I'm dead
> and the kids break up my collection.
>
> The trip was formed after the confirmation that
> the stone Mike found in January was a lunar
> meteorite. Plans were made to leave on 23 Feb and
> several long unbearable flights later I met Jim and
> Mike in Dubai. Two days of driving later we arrived
> in the search area with a few hours of daylight
> left. We headed out into the desert putting the sun
> to our backs for the best viewing. Like the first
> trip to Oman with Jim and Mike, I was fortunate to
> find the first meteorite of the trip which also
> turned out to be the largest of the trip. In this
> case 6.55 kg of, unfortunately, several hundred very
> weathered fragments of OC.
>
> The next morning it was off to the lunar site.
> At 9:50 about half hour after arriving at the site
> I found my lunar piece within 100 feet of where Mike
> found his piece in January. I'd like to say I
> started jumping up and down screaming I found one,
> but the reality was quite different. By that time
> I had picked up and discarded 50-100 other small
> stones. This one didn't have the white clasts I
> had seen on Mike's. It certainly wasn't obvious
> enough that I left it in place to photograph first.
> It was different enough though that I put down my
> gps to mark the spot and took it over to Mike for
> his opinion. Definitely LUNAR!! BIG smiles, high
> fives and one very happy meteorite hunter, we took
> it back to the find site and photographed it,
> recorded the find data and continued the search.
> By 12:00 it was brutally hot in the sun and the last
> couple hours had produced nothing except sunburns
> and I found a couple artifacts. One was a 9x7cm
> very crude hand scraper a
> nd the other a small 2.5cm broken spear point.
> Made me wonder which came first the humans or the
> meteorite. I found another very nice scraper
> driving through a different area a few days later.
> A google search when I returned home indicated they
> could be as old as 30k-50k years. To get out of the
> sun we climbed into air-conditioned vehicles and
> headed east away from the highway.
>
> The rest of the day was the Mike Farmer show.
> The only meteorite I found all day was my lunar, Jim
> didn't find any, and Mike ended the day with 9. We
> wound up camping about 30-40 miles off the highway.
>
> The next day we planed the route to end the day
> and camp at the lunar site. Again I found 1
> meteorite this day. One of the freshest meteorites
> from any of Mike's Oman trips and at 1212.5 grams a
> nice find. Driving from 7am to 7pm though and
> finding only one meteorite sure is boring and hard
> on ones butt. Three days and 3 meteorites and they
> were all nice ones.
>
> When we arrived back at the lunar site Mike
> found 2 more small lunar pieces, 2.04 and 0.78 grams
> within about 10 minutes. Mike has eyes like an
> eagle. They were the last two pieces we found. As
> we fixed dinner the wind really kicked up and there
> were thunderstorms off in the distance. Mike slept
> in a tent, Jim in one of the vehicles, and I just
> set up a cot and slept under the stars. They were
> giving me a hard time about getting rained on, but
> with an average annual rainfall of 0.0 inches in the
> central desert of Oman in Feb (and every other month
> as well) I wasn't worried. At 4am I woke up and
> rolled over. Through my eyelids I saw flashes. I
> put my glasses on and watched a great lighting show
> off in the distance for a while. Rolled over and
> headed back to sleep, but at 4:30 came a rumble of
> thunder. Since I was on a metal-legged cot I
> decided I might be better off in the vehicle. Put
> my pants on grabbed my sleeping bag, pillow, and
> shoes and headed to th
> e vehicle. Halfway to the vehicle there was huge
> bolt of lighting, one thousand-one, one
> thousand-two, one thousand-three, one thousand-four,
> one thousand RUMMMMBBBBLE. Less than a mile away,
> the vehicle was a great decision. Then the wind
> really started blowing and the rain started coming
> in buckets. Mike climbed in the other vehicle a
> minute or two after I did. Turning on the
> headlights we watched Mike's tent blow across the
> desert. Mike had to chase it in his vehicle and
> block it after a 100 meter flight. His metal case
> with his passport and other things ripped through
> the tent door while it was rolling and was dumped
> half-open in the mud. We drove the other vehicle
> over to the case and Jim grabbed it. Mike had been
> cataloging some of his meteorites and they were in
> the tent in small canvas bags, including the 2 small
> lunars. Losing them was a real concern until Mike
> found them just inside the tent door. One or two
> more rolls of the tent and they would ha
> ve been out and lost to the wind. For the next 90
> minutes or so we had 50-60 mile per hour winds and
> lots of rain. The spot we were at was pooling up.
> At this point we were glad we weren’t 30-40 miles
> from the highway like the previous night.
>
> The rains continued on and off until about
> 10am. Walking around you sank 3-4 inches in spots.
> We had hoped the rain would wash up some more
> lunar pieces, but that didn't happen. We did find
> Mike's duffel bag, which blew out of his tent, about
> 500 meters away. The fly-leaf over the tent we
> never found. After squishing around for a couple
> hours we decided to head back to the hotel and clean
> up.
>
> The trip back to the highway was exciting
> plowing through new ponds and muddy areas. We left
> tracks that will last for generations. We only got
> stuck once on the way back though, when Mike hit a
> spot where the mud was about 15 inches deep. It
> took a while to dig the soup from in front of the
> tires, but Mike zipped out with no problems. This
> was the only day we didn't find any meteorites.
> Turns out this was the biggest rain storm in Oman in
> 15 years.
>
> We decided to let the lunar field dry out for a
> couple days and headed farther north were it was a
> bit dryer. On our best day we found 15 meteorites.
> On 4 March at 16:47 I found our 40th meteorite, a
> 41.6 gram achondrite, which looks to be a diogenite.
> To be honest I was more thrilled about this than
> the lunar, because it was a cold find, not plowing
> someone else's find field. Several hours of
> searching the area however failed to turn up another
> piece. After the rain we returned to the lunar
> field a couple more times to search, including using
> a rake and shovel to stir things up, but didn't find
> any new pieces.
>
> All total for the trip I found 18 meteorites
> including the lunar and diogenite. My 16 ordinary
> chondrites weighed in at 12.9 kg. The 3 artifacts
> were a bonus, the first I have ever found. Never
> even found an arrowhead in Arizona before. For me
> it was a great trip and I'll be ready to head back
> as soon as the agony of the long flights and days
> and days of driving fade away, and the kids get
> tired of seeing their old man around the house.
>
> You can see photos of my lunar and the achondrite at
> the following URL
>
> <http://www.star-bits.com/oman.htm>
>
>
> --
> Eric Olson
> ELKK Meteorites
> http://www.star-bits.com
> ______________________________________________
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
>
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>
Received on Mon 14 Mar 2005 12:29:34 AM PST