Man Unearths Meteorite in SW Kansas
May 11, 2009 07:52 AM
http://www.kwch.com/Global/story.asp?S=10336504Man Unearths Meteorite in SW KansasBy Alana Rocha
(KIOWA COUNTY, Kan.)
They come from outer space and are embedded in fields across Kansas. Countless meteorites, of all shapes and sizes are uncovered every year here.
Eyewitness News traveled to the southwest part of the state to witness the latest discovery and learn what it says about the area.
To most of us, it's a field with a rock sitting in a hole in the middle of it. To Don Stimpson, "This is just a tremendously unique area in the whole world."
As curator of the Kansas Meteorite Museum in Haviland, Stimpson has no problem explaining why.
"We just have the streamfield of this meteorite, of this type of meteorite in the whole world," he said.
Sunday just east of Greensburg, he was ready to unearth his latest find - a rather odd-shaped piece Stimpson believes is a major chunk of the Brenham Meteorites.
Brenham Meteorite HistoryIt took Stimpson and some friends less than an hour to harness it in, test the hold and hoist it out of the ground.
It's estimated the meteorite has sat in the ground 20,000 years. And this day is the result of about two weeks of digging and a couple of months waiting on good Kansas weather to lift it out.
Stimpson says, "Maybe not everybody is a rock hound, but certainly within that community you can't help but be fascinated by coming out and picking up a piece of rock that came from space."
With the meteorite in place, the Stimpsons make their way into town to see how much it weighs.
"Looks like 1,220 pounds," Stimpson calculates.
He says of his find, "That's another one of the main masses from this field. We've found several of them now. It's filling in the science of how this thing came in and broke up there."
With a metal detector in hand, Stimpson vows to continue scouring the fields in his area to help fill in the gaps.
Stimpson will now spend some time cleaning the meteorite before displaying it in his museum near Haviland.
