| In October 2005, professional meteorite hunter Steve Arnold made one of the greatest meteorite discoveries of modern times. In a stretch of Kansas farmland Mr. Arnold located and recovered the largest meteorite of its kind known to exist.
Meteorites—fragments of natural material from outer space that impact Earth—typically originate from the asteroid belt (the remnants of a planet between Mars and Jupiter which broke apart during the formation of the Solar System). There are three types of meteorites: stones, irons and stony-irons—with stony-irons being the rarest. When particles of stone and iron in the stony-iron meteorites are “fused” together in space, they are called mesosiderites. When the stone in a stony-iron meteorite crystallizes into olivine or peridot, it is a pallasite—which when cut and polished are among the most beautiful naturally occurring substances known to exist. Less than 1% of all meteorites are pallasites—all of which originate from the asteroid belt. Steve Arnold located and excavated a pallasite and, at 1,430 pounds, Mr. Arnold’s discovery is the largest pallasite ever recovered in North America. This extraterrestrial rarity is also a member of a second unlikely class of meteorites; the meteorite is oriented—which is to say that it didn’t tumble during its descent to Earth (the indisputable evidence being its heat shield-like, parabolic surface) and this is the largest oriented pallasite known to exist. This meteorite and additional meteorites from this same fall were located after a systematic search using sophisticated modern metal-detecting equipment in an area of Kiowa County, Kansas, where a meteorite shower occurred centuries earlier. An earth-moving backhoe was necessary to lift this meteorite to the surface. The events surrounding Mr. Arnold’s record discovery have been reported in an AP wire story, in Newsweek, on all three major U.S. networks, as well as MSNBC and The Discovery Channel.
The additional meteorites recovered are mostly pallasites,
but also include rare all nickel-iron meteorites—called
siderites—and meteorites which are mixed pallasites
and siderites. Brenham Meteorite Company was formed by Steve
Arnold and Philip Mani, a geologist and oil and gas attorney,
to secure the desired tracts of farmland and to bring to market—with
select strategic partners—complete meteorites as well
as cut and polished specimens of this extraordinary extraterrestrial
treasure. See photos of the record meteorite discovery HERE
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