Meteorite fragments attract hordes to Wisconsin farms
After rumble and bang came professional hunters seeking bounty from above.
By Meg JonesMILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
Published: 8:04 p.m. Thursday, April 22, 2010
LINDEN, Wis. — Billions of years before April 14, two asteroids collided somewhere in outer space, sending a rock on a path that ultimately led to Kevin Wasley's farm field.
It took much less time to nudge the orbits of meteorite hunters toward southwestern Wisconsin, where their zeal for tiny black rocks from outer space has created quite a sensation and boosted business in nearby communities.
It started with a fireball seen and heard by residents across a wide swath of southern Wisconsin and captured on numerous video cameras. Wasley, a beef farmer, heard a rumble and bang and wondered what the noise was. He found out after seeing the news the next day.
The next sound associated with the meteorite was a knock on Wasley's farmhouse door a few days later from a man and his young son asking permission to search his property.
Since then, it's pretty much been nonstop.
"Me and the neighbors, we're half laughing — like what are all these people doing here? It's like the gold rush," Wasley said as he stopped to talk to meteorite hunters parked on the rural road next to his property.
He has seen license plates from Colorado, New Mexico, Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois.
Ruben Garcia, who lives in Arizona, hopped in his van and drove to Wisconsin as soon as he heard about the fireball. Garcia, a professional meteorite hunter who calls himself "Mr. Meteorite," was joined by other members of his crew who flew in from Oregon and Washington state, booking flights into La Crosse within 24 hours after the fireball lighted up the social networks of meteorite fanatics.
So far, the group hasn't found many meteorites.
Rob Wesel of Portland, Ore., picked up the largest piece — 219 grams.
"I almost tripped over it. It was in my path," said Wesel, who admits he first felt a "heart palpitation. Then some of this," wiping his eyes to make sure he was seeing a half-pound meteorite.
To get to this spot took more than just guesswork. Mike Bandli of Puyallup, Wash., checked Doppler radar to find the meteorite's path and plotted it on maps.
"This one had major potential. It's not your traditional fireball — it was shallow, which means its debris could be spread out 20 to 80 miles," Bandli said.
Most meteorites burn up before landing on Earth. Those that don't mostly fall where they're not seen, such as into oceans. So when a flaming meteorite makes such a big splash, so to speak, and is seen by so many people, it attracts most of the hard-core meteorite hunters and collectors.
If the Wisconsin meteorite had come in at a sharper angle, however, the pieces would be more concentrated. The search for this one is more like a needle in a haystack because the pebble-size pieces are spread out over such a large area.
Garcia knows of about 15 or so pieces found so far by residents and meteorite hunters. He expected to have filled sacks with meteorite pieces by now and admitted that unless his crew hits a mother lode in the next few days, his trip won't be lucrative.
Still, that hasn't stopped meteorite hunters are wandering Wisconsin's rolling farm fields searching for small blackened rocks. Some carry magnets on sticks or golf clubs, because the metallic content of meteorites clings to magnets. Garcia and his crew are spending 10 to 12 hours a day walking as many as 20 miles.
Paul Sipiera, a curator at the Field Museum's Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies, said Wisconsin's meteorite has received worldwide attention and would normally draw international collectors. But the air travel disruptions caused by the volcanic eruption in Iceland has thwarted some meteorite enthusiasts from traveling from Europe.
Still, some farmers were losing patience with the scientists and amateur collectors.
"The farmers are anxious to get their crops in the fields, so they are rapidly losing enthusiasm for having people traipsing in their fields," said Sipiera, who joined the search from his home in Galena, Ill. "They gave us their three to five days of cooperation, and it is up."
As farmers start plowing, the meteorite search will move to parks and public roadways, he said.
So what's the big deal? Well, meteorites are cool and they're in demand. They're a piece of outer space. They're older than Earth by 100 million years or so.
"Think about it: This rock yesterday was more than 100,000 miles farther out in space than our moon, and today you're holding it in your hand," Sipiera said.
"I guess you can call it romantic."
Their rarity also makes them valuable. Sipiera said the going price for meteorites such as those being found now in southwestern Wisconsin are $5 to $10 per gram.
Garcia sells 99 percent of the meteorites he finds. Since he arrived in Wisconsin and began searching Saturday, he has received a steady stream of text and voice messages from collectors wanting to buy anything he comes across.
Five small meteorites from last week's fireball were lent to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Geology Museum and were put on display. The five small meteorites that were lent to the museum join pieces of five of the 12 previous known meteorite falls in Wisconsin discovered by farmers on their land.
Brooke Norsted, assistant director of the Geology Museum, admitted she was thrilled to hold one.
"People go out at night and look up and wonder what's up there. Here's something tangible from outer space," Norsted said.
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