Find Valuable Meteorites with Rare Earth Magnets

During a recent trip to the Grand Canyon, I stopped off to see Meteor Crater, Arizona. This is one of the biggest and most impressive meteor craters in the United States. Situated about 50 miles east of Flagstaff, Arizona this nearly mile wide meteor impact crater is a sight to behold. It was formed some 50,000 years ago when a 160 foot wide meteor impacted the Earth with the destructive force of a 2.5 megaton hydrogen bomb. The largest single fragment of the meteor found so far is displayed at the visitor center and is less than 3 feet long. Millions of smaller fragments are still lying in the desert of Northern Arizona.

While I was there, I took the crater rim tour but was not allowed to take away even one of the millions of meteorite fragments that lie on the surface up to 10 miles away from the crater itself.

Luckily, I had the foresight to bring along two very powerful rare earth magnets attached to 15 pound test monofilament fishing line. Just outside the property which belongs to the current owners of Meteor Crater, I walked about 100 feet from the road with the magnets dangling behind me. Each magnet had the attractive power of well over ten pounds for any nickel or iron based substance.

In less than ten minutes I had found 30 meteorite fragments made out of nickel and iron and ranging from 10 grams to 35 grams. They were attached to the magnets along with many smaller specimens which I put back on the ground. I still have some of these specimens in my meteorite collection. The rest I sold on eBay. I would have searched longer but my wife was getting bored with me running around the desert.

Many people mistakenly call these specimens meteors rather than meteorites. However the definition of a meteor is an extraterrestrial rock which is still in space or which burns up when it enters our atmosphere. A meteorite is a part or all of this extraterrestrial material which actually reaches the Earth's surface and can be found by people who look in the areas where the main mass of the meteor has been known to have fallen. This area is called the strewn field.

With the popularity of rare earth magnets, also known as super magnets, which can be purchased for a reasonable cost, a new tool for collecting meteorites became available to the general public. A single cylinder magnet 4 inches long and 2 inches wide can attract and hold objects weighing as much as 350 pounds.

The trick is finding public land on which it is legal to search for meteorites or by paying a land owner a nominal fee to search on their land. This used to be hard to do since the old way to find meteorites was using a metal detector and digging equipment. Ranchers in the area were reluctant to have pot holes throughout their land. Now with the super magnets the meteorite fragments just pop out of the ground. The Ranchers have since become a little more reasonable since minimal damage is done to their land.

Another meteorite hunting area is in Odessa, Texas. However, I hear that the public sites have been pretty well worked over.

If you are interested in acquiring meteorite specimens but don't want to go to the trouble of finding them yourself, eBay and other auction sites offer thousands of meteorites from around the world. Some of the most exotic looking meteorite samples are from Russia. They are quite beautiful and yet not expensive.
Typically a nickel iron meteorite sample from Canyon Diablo, the more common name for Meteor Crater, Arizona can be purchased for less than $20 for a one ounce specimen. Imagine owning a 1 ounce piece of a traveler from outer space which you can proudly display for your friends to see and hold.

More beautiful yet are the pallasite meteorites which have olivine crystals imbedded in the nickel iron matrix. These cost more but for the collector they are well worth the price.

I hope this article has been of interest to you and that one day we meet on some meteorite strewn field dragging our magnets behind us.