[meteorite-list] Fr. Steve Arnold - The Brenham Story

From: Notkin <geoking_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Nov 18 00:05:35 2005
Message-ID: <bbcbd6a8c599949192e06c07867063f3_at_notkin.net>

Dear Friends and Listees:

Our friend Steve Arnold IMB has asked me to forward this on his behalf.


Geoff N.



**************



Hello List,
?
What an incredible ride this has been the last two months, and
especially this last week. I am reading all of your posts to the List
but, being on AOL, am unable to post back. I suppose I could get a
Yahoo address to post from, but for now I will route this through
Geoff.
?
This whole project is much too long of a story to write now, and I am
confident there will be some way I can get more of it to you later, but
I wanted to take time to share a little with you now, as many of you
seem genuinely interested.
?
First off, I have to give credit where it is due.?First, to my wife,
Qynne, who has stuck with me in this business for fifteen
years.?Without her support, none of this would have been
possible.?Second goes out to Phil Mani. Phil has evolved from a good
customer to a great friend and now a fantastic business partner on this
project.?Phil is an attorney and his legal background has allowed me a
great partner in making sure all the details get covered correctly.?His
financial help has just been the tip of the iceburg when it comes to
his contribution.?Without him, the "King of Pallasites" would still be
88 inches under ground in Kiowa County.
?
I have to thank Geoff Notkin for all the help he has given.?I seriously
don't think a tiny fraction of the media coverage that we have churned
up would have happened without his expert help.?And lastly, a great
amount of thanks have to go to the land owners of the Brenham Township,
especially Allen and Mary Binford.?If the Binfords had not so
cheerfully invited me up to hunt on their land when I first called, I
might have been discouraged at the start.?Once I got there, the
hospitality I received from them and their family was a real treasure
that I can't put a price tag on. Fortunately, it is a treasure?I won't
have to auction off to the highest bidder.
?
Now for the story:
?
For years I have wanted to hunt the Brenham site. On my return trip
from the Denver Show in September, my daughter Kelsey and I decided to
visit the 1,000 pound Brenham on display in Greensburg, Kansas.?It was
there that I was reminded of some research I came across maybe seven or
eight years ago, research that?led me to believe there should be at
least one?more meteorite on?the land now owned by?Allen and
Mary?Binford. The rest of the trip home I could not get the idea of
hunting?that site?out of my mind.
?
When I returned I decided to share what my research had revealed with
my friend Phil Mani. When I finished telling it all to him, I said, "I
really think there is something there waiting to be found." Phil shot
back with, "I know there is --?when are you going?"
?
I told him that money was a little tight right now and hunting Brenham
would require special equipment, money to get there, money to stay
there, and then I would not be making any money doing other things when
I was there. He bluntly responded: "What is it going to take?"
?
We came to an agreement to partner in the project. The next part was to
get permission from Mr. Binford to search his property.?So I called
him, told him I was a meteorite hunter and that I thought there might
be some meteorites on his property. I asked for permission to hunt. He
said, "Come on up, but you better hurry as I am going to be planting
wheat in a couple of weeks and once it is planted you will have to wait
until next summer to hunt after it is harvested."
?
I got back with Phil and we decided to jump on the opportunity
immediately. In making the plans, Phil said, "If we are going to do
this, we should do it right."?For those of you who don't know Phil, he
is a geologist?and an?oil and gas attorney.?Phil mentioned that in the
oil and gas business, if there is a promising area to explore, the
prudent thing to do is to go and get exclusive lease agreements for the
site you want AND all?the adjoining properties as well.?

So that is what we did.?

When we arrived, we discovered that a precedent had been set
seventy-odd years earlier by Nininger, and then again with Stockwell in
the 1940s. Both Nininger and Stockwell agreed that they would give a
percentage of any Brenham finds with the land owners. This precedent
gave us only one option: if we were going to be allowed to hunt, we'd
have to pay the landowners cash up front for exclusive hunting leases,
as well as a large percentage of anything we might find. We quickly
realized that we had to cut the landowners in, or WE would be cut out.?
?
Remember, this is not only farm land, there is oil and gas under this
land as well. The farmers we've met are business savvy people.?I have
invested nearly two months building relationships with my new
neighbors, and I am proud to have them "on our team."
?
Since we were?preparing to?invest mutliple tens of thousands of dollars
-- and hundreds of hours -- into the project, we set up these leases to
protect both the landowners and our investment. With wheat planting
about to begin, we had to hurry -- not only to get the leases, but to
start hunting as well.?

It wasn't long after I started searching that I found a nice all-iron
specimen.?This encouraged me to keep hunting and it proved that my
hypothesis was correct: there were more out there.?
?
I kept hunting, and about two weeks into it I found a real strong
signal.?Phil was scheduled to be up from Texas three days later so I
held off on calling in the back hoe until he arrived.?I was confident
that we had a meteorite, but little did I know WHAT a meteorite it
was!?On Sunday afternoon, October 16, the back hoe arrived and
excavation?of the greatest find of my life began.
?
Being careful not to scratch the target, we dug a little at a time,
with me jumping in periodically to check the spot with my weaker
hand-held detector.?It would only go down about twelve inches, but it
would let us know if the back hoe bucket could safely?take out another
scoop or two of dirt.?We dug two feet or so, and nothing.?We dug
another two feet, and nothing.?Second-guessing my original signal, we
had the back hoe pull away and we went over the area again with the big
detector. The strong signal was still there under the empty hole.?
?
This was encouraging as it indicated a large?specimen that had
penetrated deep into the ground.?We dug another couple feet, and still
no signal from the hand-held.?Again we rechecked, and again the big
detector said something was there.?About 64 inches down I ran the hand
held over the center of the hole and got a strong beep.?A shovel was
handed to me. I stuck it into the dirt and was greeted with the
ever-so-sweet "tink" of the metal spade contacting with the evasive
target we were searching for.?
?
The plan was to dig out around the specimen to determine how big it was
and how we would get it out of the ground.?If it was small enough to
fit into the back hoe bucket, I would just roll it in, if not we would
have to tie it with a towing strap and drag it out.?Finding the edges
of the meteorite quickly revealed that we had a monster on our
hands.?Maybe not as big as the 1,000 pound specimen found by H.O.
Stockwell in 1949, but it could be.??
?
The top of the meteorite proved to be very rough, with great character,
not rounded like most Brenhams. "Gnarly" was the word that came to
mind.?But a three-foot by two-foot gnarly rock was fine with me.?We
didn't know how deep the rock went, but the sides seemed to be sloping
in enough that we could get the strap around it secure enough to lift
out.?I figured we had a thin rock,?maybe ten inches across, that might
weigh 800 or 900 pounds.
?
We got the strap around it and the back hoe started to lift.?Screaming,
the back hoe was not able to lift the rock extended as it was.?An
adjustment had to be made by the operator -- he pulled the bucket in
closer so the larger hydraulics would be doing the lifting.?After
possibly thousands of years of being?trapped in the soil, the rock was
once again airborne.
?
The "bunker buster" as we were calling it was being hoisted up.?It
slowly started to rotate in its swing. Phil saw it first and he could
not contain his excitement.?He hollered out over the noise of the
diesel engine: "It's oriented Steve, it's oriented!"
?
Indeed it was.?
?
I was in shock.
?
It was obvious that this specimen was much bigger than the old 1,000
pound main mass. It?had a gorgeous nose cone facing down, with what was
now -- clearly -- a concave back side.?We had found the world's largest
oriented pallasite!?An hour or so later, we took Mr. Binford's pick-up
truck to the scales at the grain elevator and weighed the truck?without
the meteorite.?We then put the meteorite in the back of his truck and
weighed it again.?The weight was 1,430 pounds, or exactly 650kg: 43%
larger than Stockwell's biggest.?
?
All of a sudden the nick name "bunker buster" didn't seem appropriate.
Many will always consider Esquel to be the "Queen of the Pallasites"
and rightfully so. And so,?a few days after the excavation, the name
"King of the Pallasites" struck me as a more fitting title for this
majestic specimen.
?
So now what?
?
Well, we are promoting the "King" via the media.?The news story has
taken off even more than we expected.?It is having a viral effect,
spreading far beyond the coffee tables in Kiowa County, Kansas, and the
conversations of meteorite collectors.?I will let Phil post the story
of what happened last week at his club?in San Antonio. That story shows
just how fascinated people are with this discovery.?
?
While we are promoting this rock to sell, I am also preparing to hunt
more.?I was obsessed with finding the borders of the Park Forest
strewnfield, and I am determined to do the same here.?Due to the amount
of land?we have leased, that is going to take a long time.?I bought a
small house in Kiowa County last weekend, and I'll be working out of
there.
?
It is a long term?project I have committed myself to.?While I will be
doing most of the physical exploration, Phil has made a very
substantial commitment for the long term on this project as well.?While
I do feel very fortunate that I?made this find early on, I am not
kidding myself. There is a lot more to do.?
?
I know many of you are probably now wanting to hunt at Brenham, and I
don't blame you.?However, due to the tremendous financial investment
and?investment of time that have made, we are not able to invite?people
to hunt in the area with us at this time.?We hope you will appreciate
the situation we are in.?
?
As a friendly warning: if you do come up to Brenham to hunt meteorites,
you are going to be disappointed, unless you want to hunt?WAY outside
of?the strewnfield area.?Our?long-term exclusive hunting leases have
been made with all the available land owners within the known strewn
field, and then some.?
?
There is some information about our project that we are wanting to keep
private at this time, but I am certain that most, if not all of it,
will come out eventually.?If you ask Phil or myself questions about
what we are doing or how we are doing it, you might find us a little
hesitant in sharing too much, too quickly, as we have paid a high price
in learning what we have so far.?
?
While we intend to keep some?information to ourselves for now, one
thing we hope everyone will get to share in is the increased interest
in meteorite collecting that?is happening?now among the
general?public.?"A rising tide lifts all ships" is an appropriate
analogy here, I think. Just the talk of a meteorite that might be worth
$1,000,000 is enough to make some?people stop and consider meteorite
collecting as a hobby.?I believe that this will be a very good thing,
especially among the dealers.?And, if you are a collector who would
like to see the value of your collection go up this could be, for you
too, a very good thing.
?
If the "King of the Pallasites" is still unsold by February, 2006, we
fully intend on bringing it to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show for
public viewing. If you are interested in seeing it in person before
then, please contact either Phil or?me and we can discuss the
arrangements.


 From the land of Oz and Awes and Ooohs & Ahhhs,

Steve Arnold

http://www.worldrecordmeteorite.com
Received on Fri 18 Nov 2005 12:05:31 AM PST