How To Find Meteorites

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So you’re looking for meteorites, or you want to learn how to find them huh? Well, hopefully this article will help you do just that. I’ve been hunting since August of 2007 and I have found lots of meteorites and added some very nice specimens to my collection. I’ve found literally hundreds of the little space rocks so far!

I was born and raised in the sticks and spent my entire childhood and early adult life stomping around the wilds of Florida so I know a thing or two about hunting, and the outdoors. My dad was a sergeant in the Army and he raised us like little soldiers. He always told my sister and I to “Always Be Prepared”. We spent so much time in the wilderness it was like a second home to us. We would go on hunting trips and survival trips like other people went to the movies. This was great training for meteorite hunting.

Back to finding meteorites… The first thing you need is a place to hunt. Not all terrain lends itself to meteorite hunting. Florida is a considerably different environment than the Southwest United States. Swamps, marshes, beaches and dense forests cover most of Florida. None of that type of terrain is in the Southwest that’s for sure. Meteorites are typically found in arid, dry, desert locales. However you can find meteorites just about anywhere on the planet. The Willamette meteorite for example (the largest meteorite ever found in the United States) was found in Oregon of all places. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Oregon but it rains there in the forested areas almost daily. This meteorite was found in a forest, and a lot of it had weathered away but it still is the biggest meteorite yet to be found in the U.S.

Let’s start your meteorite hunting adventures off right. You need the equipment, which costs money so you know you'll need a job. Unless of course you're super rich, but then you could buy any meteorite you wanted.

You'll need this stuff as a start:

Tools Of The Meteorite Hunter

A Good Meteorite Stick: Basically a golf club with the head chopped off with a magnet attached on the tip. You'll use this to touch and pick up meteorites on the surface of the ground you are hunting. Meteorite sticks are only good for 3 things, picking up meteorites, as a makeshift walking stick, and to whack those pesky rattle snakes that want to make your leg their lunch.

A Good Metal Detector: Whites, Fisher, Minelab. Check the MeteoriteWatch.com forums to see which models work best. The Gold Bug Series from Fisher are great for meteorite hunting. Many people love the White's GMT, or even the V-SAT. Do not get a Bounty Hunter detector! You can expect to spend about $250 for a good detector that will find meteorites.

GPS Location Device: You absolutely need on of these. It's imperative you have on in the field. Not just for marking the location of your meteorite find for classification, but it’s a must have for wilderness navigation.

A Good Quality Small Pick Axe: You’ll use this to dig up your meteorites of course.

Basic Desert/Outdoor Gear: Maps, Backpack, waist pack, a good knife, multi-tool, rope (parachute cord), water, water, water, food, first aid kit, snake bite kit, tire repair kit. If you are traveling by ATV, or 4X4 it’s good to have a tow strap, shovel, two way radios, and extra fuel and water. This list is not all inclusive, you’ll also need a compass, extra batteries for both the radios and GPS, a flashlight, lighter, matches, plastic baggies, trash bags, and a good book to curl up next to the campfire with. A survival kit is always a good idea as well. This can have fishing line, hooks, a few extra matches, band-aids, alcohol swabs, etc… You get the idea. Don’t forget the cell phone!

Finding An Area To Hunt Meteorites

Once you have all the equipment you need, then you need an area to hunt. This is where good solid research comes in. Do a Google search for the keyword phrase “meteorite database” or visit the Meteoritical Society’s website here: http://tin.er.usgs.gov/meteor/ There you will find a database chock full of great information on ALL the classified finds on the US and the world for that matter, complete with GPS coordinates, and Google Earth links for mapping and satellite photos. You can’t beat this for quality in-depth information.

NOTE: Don’t just go searching coordinates you find in the database. Some property may be private land, State land and you cannot hunt there without permission. Get the land owners permission BEFORE you start your hunt. If you are hunting Federal land be sure you have maps! Make sure you know where you are and that it’s legal to hunt that location. This article is NOT meant as legal advise. CYA people. Use common sense. Don’t hunt land you don’t own without permission. Simple as that.

OK, so now what? You have your equipment, your maps, your trusty meteorite stick and an idea of where to search. Well, get out there and hunt. If you are hunting a dry lake bed it’s very different than hunting in the hills with trees, bushes and big boulders to navigate around.

Meteorite Hunting With A Metal Detector

Familiarize yourself with your metal detector. Buy a few throw down meteorites for calibrating your detector, or better yet ask someone you know that has meteorites found in the area you are going to hunt if you can use one of their meteorites to tune your detector. Once out in the field you can “throw down” the meteorite tune your detector and your off hunting meteorite. Don’t forget to pick the meteorite back up or your friend won’t be very happy with you regardless of how many meteorites you find!

When you’re swinging your detector keep it low to the ground and swing slow and steady until you get used to it. Once you get the hang of it you can speed things up a bit. When I first started hunting meteorites with a metal detector I noticed other hunters seemed to find more meteorites than me. This was rather frustrating at first, but I quickly gained my enthusiasm back once I found even a small meteorite. I was going slow and steady and learning to recognize the different sounds the detector would make when it detects a “hot rock” versus a meteorite. You’ll dig a lot or targets that are not meteorites. It’s a cold hard fact of detecting, it’s good exercise for sure, but your back will know it that night.

As my friends would find meteorites I began to see a pattern developing. I would find one or two, they find more. Over a few trips I experimented a little. I tried swinging my detector closer to the ground, or with slower steady sweeps. This produced more signals but also resulted on more false targets. I would grid the area or try zig zag patterns. I even tried a mowing the lawn type pattern where I would walk in a straight line for 50-100 feet or so and then double back and half cross my trail on the way back. This produced some meteorites but not like what my friends were finding.

Then it hit me. Duh! I wasn’t covering enough ground. This is where some of you may disagree. But this techniques works! Go fast, and swing that detector like you mean it. Don’t dawdle, move across as much ground as possible cover the search area in any pattern you feel is thorough, but cover it fast. Then move on to the next area. There are pros and cons to this method and other methods will work. But if you are serious about finding meteorites you need to cover as much ground as humanly possible. There’s a lot of unsearched ground out there. If you grid the area well enough you will find a meteorite, and once you find one you can slow down a bit and search the area a bit more. If you don’t find any more, move on. After a while you will begin to recognize false targets as just that and you won’t even stop when you hear the distinct beep or buzz of the hot rock.

Use Your Eyes
Also, don’t forget to “look” for the meteorites as well. Sometimes I find myself staring at the ground and zoning off into some dreamlike state when swinging the detector. I could be thinking about a movie, or what I had to eat last Friday night and all of a sudden get a signal and it’ll bring me back to what I am doing. Don’t just listen for your detector to beep, watch the ground. Look for the meteorites with your eyes as well and the detector. I have found meteorites simply by looking around while detecting. One nice big one 30+ grams, was found when a buddy of mine was walking over to me after hunting for hours in the same area. As we walked toward each other I was nonchalantly swinging my detector and looking at the ground, then it happened. I looked down and right there on the surface was a nice big meteorite screaming at me to pick it up, I quickly swung the detector over the rock and sure enough, ZIP ZIP ZIP. It just goes to show you that you have to use all your senses. Don’t forget you have eyes, use them.

Identifying Meteorites
Let’s say you dig something up that you think might be a meteorite. You know it’s not a hot rock because it’s got what looks like fusion crust, it’s also magnetic, and has thumbprints or regmaglypts. Is it heavier than a normal rock of this size? Does it have chondrules? Chondrules are round spherical shaped inclusions within the matrix of the meteorite. Chodrules are found, and rightly so, in Chondrite meteorites. Chondrites are the most common typ of meteorite and most chondrite classification are whats called “Ordinary Chondrites”. There are other more rare types like the carbonaceous chondrite, or the achondrite, which has no chondrules at all. Read this article for more info on chondrules. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chondrule

Chondrule Photos: http://www.meteorite.com/meteorite-gallery/meteorite-pages/pc-out-of-thi...

Fusion Crust: This is another unique identifying characteristic of meteorites. Fusion crust is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the burned crust like outer layer of the stone which is formed when it enters out atmosphere. It heats up, melts the exterior of the meteoroid and forms a crust. Not unlike burnt toast in your toaster or when you leave a pizza in the oven too long. ;) Most crust is dark brown to black in color, sometimes smooth and sometimes exhibiting small cracks in the surface.

Here’s a great article complete with photos: http://meteorites.wustl.edu/id/fusioncrust.htm

Magnet Test: Of course what meteorite identification would be complete without a magnet test. Simple take any strong magnet and touch it to the specimen, if it sticks then you are one step closer to it being a meteorite. There are terrestrial rocks that resemble meteorites and sometimes it’s hard for the experts to tell if it’s really a meteorite. If this happens then lab tests must be made to properly identify the specimen as a meteorite.

Meteorite Tests: http://meteorite-identification.com/streak.html
How To Identify A Meteorite: http://www.meteoritemarket.com/metid1.htm

Sometimes when you find a rock that meets all the criteria, but you know it’s not a meteorite then you’ve got yourself a “meteorwrong”. A kind of an anecdotal term used to describe anything that looks like a meteorite but isn’t anything other than a terrestrial rock.

MeteorWrong Gallery: http://meteorites.wustl.edu/meteorwrongs/meteorwrongs.htm

Let me say I am NOT AN EXPERT meteorite hunter! I Leave that title to Ruben Garcia, Geoff Notkin, Mike Farmer, Mike Miller, Bob Haag and all the REAL veteran hunters out there. Jim Smaller, Jim Krieg, Sonny Clary, Keith Jenkeren, Rob Wesel, Rob Matson, Robert Ward, Wayne Holmes, and many many others I can't think of off the top of my head. These are the experts. If you want to know about meteorites and meteorite hunting, these are the guys you need to talk to. These are the guys that helped me along in my quest to become a meteorite hunter and if I can help others do that too then that’s what I’ll do.

If you are sure you have a meteorite after doing all the above tests and verifications then CONGRATULATIONS on finding a meteorite. You are one of the lucky few to have found your very own rock from space.