Greensburg(Kansas), Oct. 17 (AP): Scientists were excited when they pulled a 70-kg. meteorite from deep below a wheat field in Kansas, but what got them most electrified was the way they unearthed it.

The team yesterday uncovered the find four feet, or just over one metre, under a meteorite-strewn field using new ground-penetrating radar technology that someday might be used on Mars.

It was that technology which pinpointed the site and proved for the first time that it could be used to find objects buried deep in the ground and to make an accurate three-dimensional image of them.

"It validates the technique so we can use something similar to that instrument when we go to Mars," said Patricia Reiff, Director of the Rice Space Institute.

Such GPR systems had been used in the past to locate smaller meteorites in Antarctica where ice allows easier penetration of the sonar. But until the Kansas dig, the technology had not been successfully used for ground detection in heavy soils -- like on Mars -- to find meteorites or water there.

The dig was likely the most documented excavation yet of a meteorite find, with researchers painstakingly using brushes and hand tools to preserve evidence of the impact trail and to date the event of the meteorite strike. Soil samples also were bagged and tagged and organic material preserved for dating purposes.

The expedition was put together by the Houston Museum of Natural Science and led by meteorite hunters Steve Arnold and Philip Mani.