Huge Meteorite Discovered Underground in Area of Kansas Rich in Space Rock

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBEDAS2XFE.html

GREENSBURG, Kan. (AP) - A rare 1,400-pound meteorite was discovered seven feet underground by a collector in an area long known for producing prized space rocks.

Using a metal detector mounted on a three-wheel vehicle, Steve Arnold of Kingston, Ark., found the huge meteorite two weeks ago in Kiowa County's Brenham Township in southern Kansas.

The meteorite is classified as an oriented pallasite, a type noted for a conical shape with crystals embedded in iron-nickel alloy. Only two larger ones of that type are known to have been found: a 3,100-pounder in Australia and a 1,500-pounder in Argentina. snip

"It is aesthetically the type of meteorite that makes collectors drool," said Arnold, who has hunted for meteorites around the world and estimates his find is worth "seven figures."

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. must have been radioactive. it would explain the ID decision they made.

some genetic changes are good mutations. Others, when sitting atop a huge ancient alien rock, well, see what happened?

[rzemanfl]

2. It was put there by "intelligent design" of course. 8,000 years

ago. It's Kansas, you know.

[RoyGBiv]

6. I was just going to say ...

Scientists won't be allowed to study this, of course, only religious scholars looking for signs of a message left by god about why he placed it there.

[daleo]

17. That sounds like heresy

Isn't the universe only supposed to be 7000 years old?

[rzemanfl]

21. Burn in hell, apostate! n/t

[Salviati]

3. Does it glow green?

and is there a Smallville in Kiowa County?

That's pretty cool though.

[TlalocW]

7. Wellington, Kansas

Was once named as the official Smallville of America by DC Comics.

TlalocW

[TheCentepedeShoes]

23. I lived there once.

6-7 yrs old. Nice little town IIRC.

[TlalocW]

27. My mom moved there for 4 years

After I went to college. Grandma wanted to be closer to the family farm outside of Argonia, 20 - 30 miles to the west. I didn't see much of it except for summers and school vacations.

TlalocW

[niallmac]

4. Why should some place in Kansas be famous for meteorites?

Are they attracted to wheat?

[benburch]

5. There are NO naturally occurring stones there. NONE.

Any rock you find was either imported by man or is a meteorite.

[niallmac]

8. I think I am too geologically challenged to ask the follow up.

Glaciers? Didn't they drop off some rocks?

[HawkerHurricane]

10. The glaciers didn't get that far south.

See...
http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/larson/glaciers.html

[niallmac]

11. Great animation!

So, Kansas is just soil, run off from the advancing retreating glaciers? No upheavals eg no
meeting point of tectonic plates. No volcanic activity to speak of. Fascinating.
Here in Idaho we know of a great flood washing out the Columbia River basin area
when an ice dam broke some 10,000 years ago. The inland ocean was (I thought) somewhere
over the Utah Wyoming area. It was a tremendous flood carving out much of this areas present day topography although there is a lot of recent volcanic activity visible here too.

[HawkerHurricane]

12. I liked it too.

Kansas looks to be a mixture of glacial run off soil, plus earlier stuff, almost all sedimentary... no glacial erratics, no vulcanism, no tectonic movement...

[benburch]

15. No, there is a large region in KS that is all silt and loam.

The extreme scarcity of stone (or timber for that matter, as it was all prairie) is why the early settlers built sod houses.

Sod Houses; http://websteader.com/wbstdsd1.htm http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/600-699/nb620.htm

I know it is hard for most people to imagine, but it's true. On the plus side, once a settler had broken the sod (NOT EASY) he never again had to worry about breaking a plow on stones!

[hfojvt]

18. my ggfather built a sod house in Wisconsin for the winter of 1874

before he built the wood frame house that still stands.

[benburch]

29. More data on that - Geological map.

Here is a Kansas soil map;

http://www.xdc.arm.gov/data_viewers/sgp_surfchar/Kansassoil_new.html



See all that pink area in the western part of the state? That's all silt-loam, and is where the good meteorite hunting is.

Now, meteorites fall the same everywhere. About once every ten years one the size of a pea likely hits the roof of your home. But you'd never notice it because there are stones everywhere! A meteorite falls in most places and gets lost in all the natural stones.

There are several other good places to hunt for meteorites, but the very best are some of the ice fields in Antarctica. Meteorite hunting parties on those ice fields can often turn up several meteorites a day because there is nothing else there but ice!

EDIT: Even better is the pure Loam (Dark Green) and I believe the present find was in that dark green section fifth county west from the western border along the southern border of the state.

[kestrel91316]

13. It must be a gardener's heaven, to be able to dig a raised bed and

not have to pitch rocks by the hundredweight as you go.............

Here in SoCal we have adobe, with a layer of large packed rocks down about 8-12 inches. Don't know what's under that. CAN'T GET under that.

[RobertSeattle]

9. God must have aimed at Dover, PA and missed

Yours,

Pat Robertson.

[theHandpuppet]

25. God was aiming for Kansas' Fred Phelps

Too bad He missed!

[kevinbgoode]

14. By Monday, the fundies will be claiming

that this is Noah's Ark.

[rzemanfl]

20. Lord Jesus, but you are dumb. This is the ANCHOR to Noah's

Ark, praise the Lord! The Lord giveth and taketh away, he giveth this anchor and taketh away your smarts. Praise his infinite wisdom, in his great plan he gave this meteor hunter a three wheeler and a metal detector so he could become a millionaire without having to play the heathen lottery or cheat in business dealings like so many of our Republican friends must do in order to buy their big houses, Hummers, Aviators, Escalades and jewelry so that their money can trickle down to us believers so that we can give it to Pat Robertson.

Why do you hate America?

[Broken_Hero]

16. Yeah, i heard about this...

The other day on the local news...weird find, the guy stands to make some big $ for it...

[Bozita]

19. I'm certain that meteor can be no more than 3,000 years old ... especially

...in Kansas.

It's gotta fit the Biblical timeline.

[akarnitz]

22. You have all missed the boat on this one!

These aren't your so called "meteorites", scientific heathens! These are the HOLY MEATBALLS!!! This is yet more proof to the existence of THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER.

I suggest, for the sake of your salvation, you put on your hair-shirts and go flagellate yourselves!

[Richard Steele]

24. Don't you mean "Put on your ANGEL-hair-shirts" ?

[akarnitz]

26. No. That would be fusilli.

I'm going home, and I'm taking the pasta jokebook with me.

[mtnsnake]

28. Wouldn't it be nice if they crack it open & find fossils. Fundies would

drop off the face of the earth.

Anyone else read Deception Point by Dan Brown?