[meteorite-list] Even more of that darned Brenham

From: Darren Garrison <cynapse_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Jul 3 14:26:31 2006
Message-ID: <f1oia253folit8lv6jgc9ts3vcb4idjvsj_at_4ax.com>

A rotted/"puzzle piece" new main mass? Photo on site

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/14956160.htm

Posted on Mon, Jul. 03, 2006
 
KIOWA COUNTY DISCOVERY

Newfound meteorite may be among largest

BY BECCY TANNER
The Wichita Eagle

Don Stimpson thinks he has found a new meteorite crater in a Kiowa County field
that was thought to have been largely cleared of meteorites.

The public can get a look at what he found Saturday during the town of
Haviland's meteorite festival.

If testing confirms that the field is an impact site, Stimpson said, it's a
"pretty big discovery."

"I'm as excited as can be about this new discovery," he said.

Stimpson and the field's owner, Paul Ross, used a giant metal detector recently
to locate a number of rocks that together may make up one of the largest
meteorites of its kind.

Stimpson said the metal detector's sound was so loud that he thought they had
found the remains of an old, rusty culvert.

Ross took a shovel, dug down and turned over a piece of meteorite.

"We dug and dug and brought up a 250-pound meteorite," Stimpson said. "And then
we looked, and there was another one there. We dug it out and... well, wait a
minute, there is more. We brought 1,500 pounds of meteorite from that one hole."

Last fall, professional meteorite-hunter Steve Arnold found a record-breaking
1,400-pound meteorite two miles southeast of Ross' land.

The Brenham meteorites, named for Brenham Township near Haviland, fell some
20,000 years ago.

They are some of the best-known and sought-after in the world for their
crystals, which look like stained glass when cut.

They are known as pallasites and are extremely rare.

David Alexander, a Wichita State University physics professor whose specialty is
astronomy, said that if Stimpson's find proves to be a single meteorite, it
would be the largest pallasite ever found.

One way to tell whether it is an impact site, Alexander said, is if the bedrock
below is shattered.

Stimpson said the bottom of the crater has a thick layer of rust about 20 feet
in diameter.

"We do not know how far it extends," he said. "I'll keep working on the site as
long as I can and submit a scientific paper with my data when we are finished."
Received on Mon 03 Jul 2006 02:27:17 PM PDT