[meteorite-list] America’s Greatest Meteorite Hunter

From: Ruben Garcia <meteoritemall_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat Oct 14 10:21:59 2006
Message-ID: <20061014142156.76806.qmail_at_web32511.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

America?s Greatest Meteorite Hunter

This has been a very interesting and rewarding year
with respect to meteorite hunting. Not only did I have
the opportunity to take part in the filming of a TV
show for the travel channel called ?Cash and
Treasure? I?ve also had some wonderful hunting
excursions. These treks into the wilderness have
yielded some beautiful pallasites, siderites and of
course chondrites both classified and unclassified.

While all of this has been great, I must admit that
one experience stands out among the rest. This year I
had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know,
America?s Greatest Meteorite Hunter.

This prolific hunter has found over one hundred and
twenty five unique meteorite classifications. These
include two urelites, one achondrite and a beautiful
Portales Valley meteorite that nearly struck his
house.

(Portales Valley Meteorite that nearly struck his
house.)
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/meteoritemall/album?.dir=72cdre2&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/meteoritemall/my_photos

His name is Skip Wilson, and for nearly forty years he
has been scouring remote areas of New Mexico for
extra-terrestrial treasure.

An amazing fact about Skip is that all two hundred and
eleven of his finds were made in New Mexico. One
meteorite came from De Baca County, three from Lea
County, four from Curry County and the remaining two
hundred and three coming from within Roosevelt County.

How did Skip find so many unique meteorite
classifications in such a small area? The answer may
surprise you, as he did it by hunting mostly in areas
called ?blow outs.?

(Here's Skip hunting a "blow out" area.)
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/meteoritemall/album?.dir=904are2&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/meteoritemall/my_photos

A blow out is a bowl-shaped area that is virtually
devoid of any sand. The constant wind in these
particular areas formed the bowl by scooping out the
sand, and exposing the hard clay-like surface below.
In the process of removing the sand, the wind also
uncovered hundreds of tiny stones. These stones that
once rested upon the sand, now lay on the bottom of
the blow out. Occasionally, hidden among these
terrestrial stones are meteorites.

Skip told me that he found his first meteorite in 1967
and that it took him two more years to find the
second. This is partly because he didn?t know how to
go about finding meteorites in an area of the state
covered by farm land and sand dunes.

It wasn?t until he realized that these blow out areas
held meteorites, and that all he had to do was be able
to recognize them in order to find them.

Recognize them he did. Skip found nearly fifty
meteorites on just one blow out that was about 40
acres in size. Incredibly, Skip didn?t find them all
in a single day. Inner-mixed with terrestrial stones
the meteorites blended in so well it took him years to
collect them all.

Over the next four decades Skip simply went from blow
out to blow out collecting meteorites. It seems
strange that these areas could hold so many meteorites
until one realizes that the ground upon which they
rested is very old. Ground samples collected by Skip
were studied and some scientists have estimated these
blow out areas to be over one hundred thousand years
old.

This is important because if the ground has remained
unchanged for tens of thousands of years, then it has
had plenty of time to collect falling stars. Oddly
enough all blow out areas did not produce meteorites.
In fact Skip says that many more blow outs were
completely void of meteorites than those that held
them. This is something that no one has been quite
able to explain.

Skip Wilson and others like him have paved the way for
meteorite hunters like me. It was a pleasure meeting
him and getting to experience first hand what he does
so well. I can?t imagine what it would have been like
to be a meteorite hunter forty years ago with such
little information available on the subject. Somehow
Skip made the quantum leap in logic between knowing
meteorites exist and being able to find them. In fact
he did it so well that it may be quite some time
before another American meteorite hunter can even come
close.

Skip still hunts meteorites as time, and his knees
permit and actually found yet another new unclassified
stone earlier this year. I?m sure that no matter how
the meteorite market changes, Skip Wilson will still
be out silently doing what he does best, proving that
he is, America?s Greatest Meteorite Hunter.
 

(Here we are hunting and hanging out with Skip and his
wife Marian.) (Rob Reisener, Sonny Clary and Myself)
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/meteoritemall/album?.dir=3ba1re2&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/meteoritemall/my_photos

Ruben Garcia


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Received on Sat 14 Oct 2006 10:21:56 AM PDT