Meteorites: They Came from Outer SpaceMeteorite hunter and TV personality Geoffrey Notkin travels the world digging for space rocks

In 1969, five year-old Vicki Allison was living with her American missionary parents in an old adobe home in Chihuahua, Mexico, on the eastern edge of the Sierra Madre mountains.

Around 1 am on the morning of February 8, the family was awakened by a bright light and shaking. The shutters flew open and the night was illuminated by a tremendous fireball, followed by a loud boom. “It was almost like high noon,” Vicki recalls. Vicki remembers her father getting a radio or news report, of some kind, about where the impact site might be. The family piled in their van and drove 60 or 70 miles, which took several hours.

The Allison family in Mexico, around the time of the Allende fireball

Shortly after daybreak they arrived at an open field, where several locals were wandering around in a daze. The meteor had exploded in the air and showered the area with multiple pieces, but nobody yet knew exactly what had happened. Mr. Allison saw an odd looking rock on the ground, and “knew it was something unusual,” Vicki remembers. He carried it to the van, and put it in the back.

The family later returned to the United States, and the “unusual rock” was given to Vicki. It was used as a doorstop for many years, until Vicki’s brother saw a show about meteorites on the Discovery Channel and decided to have the Mexican rock examined.

The Allison Allende carbonaceous chondrite (CV3.2) fell to earth on February 8, 1969 in Chihuahua, Mexico. Specimen weight is 4,467 grams, making it one of the largest of its type offered for private sale. As the stone was picked up immediately after the fall it still exhibits a fresh fusion crust.

The owners contacted Aerolite Meteorites who offered to work with the family and find a good home for this important meteorite. The Allison Allende was a featured exhibit during the 2008 Tucson gem and mineral shows. It was recently purchased by a private collector in the United States and can look forward to a brighter furture than its previous life as a doorstop.

Following the success of the one-hour pilot, which has aired about twenty times since its premiere during May of 2009, Science Channel has ordered a new series of Meteorite Men episodes.

The new series of one-hour science/adventure programs will continue to co-star meteorite hunters Steve Arnold and Geoff Notkin as they search for rare and valuable rocks from space. Eric Schotz and Ruth Rivin return as executive producers for LMNO Productions of Encino, California, and Bob Melisso will continue on a supervising producer. Sonya Bourn and Kathy Williamson joined the production team in August.

The cast and crew of Meteorite Men on location in Kiowa County, Kansas, filming the pilot in early October, 2008

Pre-production work is already underway at some top secret sites and there will be some surprises in store for viewers in the new episodes. The new series of Meteorite Men will air in 2010 on the Science Channel.

Co-host Geoff Notkin will be writing a behind-the-scenes “Making of Meteorite Men TV Diary” as part of his daily science blog, The Logical Lizard, for TucsonCitizen.com.

We meteorite enthusiasts are passionate about our space rocks, and also pretty much anything else related to them, especially books. It has been a while since a major new meteorite book appeared in our telescopes. The last was The Field Guide to Meteors and Meteorites by O. Richard Norton and Lawrence A. Chitwood published in 2008. The release of any work on the subject is a treat for us, and the wonderful new meteorite book The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars by Christopher Cokinos is both a joy to read and a revelation.

To most people the study of meteorites might perhaps seem as “hard science” a topic as one could find. Planetary geology, the formation of asteroids, the theories of chondrule creation, how meteorites heat up and break up in our atmosphere, where they fall, and what they are made of are just a few of the topics we research and ponder. So, what a delight it is to find a book that does not deal, primarily, with the composition and classification of meteorites, but rather delves deeply into their mystery, history, and allure.

Christopher uses meteorites as a vehicle to embark upon his own journey of discovery, at the same time considering the astonishing journeys they have made. While visiting some of the most famous meteorites sites in the world including Cape York, Greenland; Antarctica; the Brenham, Kansas strewnfield, and Meteor Crater, Arizona; he ponders the motives and passions of brilliant and eccentric scientists, researchers, hunters and entrepreneurs who made the study of—or the acquisition of—meteorites the pivotal moments of their lives. And he makes some significant discoveries about his own life along the way.

“We each have found ourselves lost in the dark wood, whatever we thought the true way had been or can be, but for me, in no small measure, I found the path out because it was lit at times with the passage of shooting stars. This book is an exploration of lives, including my own, caught in such light.”

The editor of Istope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing and a professor of English at Utah State University, Christopher is a literary writer in every sense of the word. His prose is unique and lyrical, full of imagery and contemplation. There is also plenty of humor and plenty of adventure, and rich portraits of characters who played critical roles in the history of space rocks.

The Fallen Sky is an intensely personal book. Christopher digs into the lore of space rocks and shooting stars and then uses what he learns about them to examine his own life. It is the most personal and most moving book about space rocks since Harvey Harlow Nininger’s great autobiography, Find a Falling Star, published in 1972 and now long out-of-print.

A beautiful and thoughtful work, The Fallen Sky belongs on the bookshelf or bedside table of everyone interested in meteorites, astronomy, the study of obsession, and the history of science.

On olivine-rich pallasites:

“The olivine, which on Earth is the gemstone peridot, seems to glow from within. Slices of pallasites look a bit like the coat of a metal leopard with green spots . . . Brenham olivine is autumnal and ethereal, like an October forest and sky in a luminist painting. The curves of metal look like sinuous paths connecting lakes seen from on high. A slice of Brenham? It’s a silver sponge that soaks up light.”

The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars by Christoper Cokinos is published by Penguin USA on July 30, 2009
Hardcover
9.25 x 6.25 in
528 pages
$27.95

It is nearly upon us. In less than three weeks, forty whole years will have passed since that remarkably odd-looking, yet universally adored device named Eagle began broadcasting from the Sea of Tranquility, a quarter of a million miles away.

Back in the late 1960s I was incarcerated in a ridiculous and oppressive public school in south London. I would use any excuse to stay home, often feigning illness in order to avoid another day of random brutality at the hands of our drunken headmaster and his surly henchmen. So, imagine my delight when my parents agreed to let me stay home to watch all of the moon landings. Those were great times all around. Actual, real spaceships and no school; what an unforgettable combo!

The mighty Saturn V booster lifts off from Cape Kennedy at the beginning of the Apollo 11 mission. Photograph by NASA/Courtesy nasaimages.org

Now, many years on, and many miles away, I live in Tucson, Arizona which is also home to the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. LPL was intimately involved with the Apollo missions and the moon landings. So, what better place to rendezvous for the anniversary of those first marvelous footprints on the lunar surface? On Saturday, July 18 the LPL will host a celebration of humanity’s greatest adventure in the Kuiper Space Sciences Building on the University of Arizona campus.

The documentary film In the Mountains of the Moon will be shown; senior research specialist James V. Scotti and professor emeritus Robert G. Strom will be giving lectures. I’ll be there too with a special meteorite exhibit. Imagine my delight when Aerolite Meteorites was invited to participate in this historic Apollo 11 anniversary event, and some of the brilliant people who helped take us to the Moon.

See you there, and don’t forget to bring your space helmet.

The June 23 Tucson fireball caught on film. Courtesy of KOLD News.

At approximately 9:20 pm on Tuesday, June 23, a large fireball was seen by multiple eyewitnesses in the night sky over southern Arizona. So far sightings have been reported as far south as Green Valley and as far north as Phoenix, with a concentration of reports from in and around Tucson.

The fireball clearly broke into multiple pieces and may have deposited meteorites on the ground. Some witnesses reported seeing blue and green within the fireball, which could indicate satellite debris rather than a meteorite.

First thing this morning I visited KOLD News Channel 13 here in Tucson and filmed an interview and meteorite demonstration segment with First Alert Meteorologist Erin Jordan. The segment aired on the Live at Noon News and will be repeated throughout the day.

Meteorologist and reporter Erin Jordan of KOLD News Channel 13 filming a segment with the author about the June 23 Tucson fireball. Photograph by Suzanne Morrison.

If meteorites from the June 23 fireball made it to earth, they may have landed in southern Arizona. If you had a clear view of the fireball, or particularly if you heard sonic booms, please contact us immediately. I am an internationally known science writer and meteorite specialist based in Tucson and we are meteorite recovery professionals. The sooner a new fall can be recovered, the more valuable it is to science.

The author on KOLD News, Tucson, June 24, 2009

Watch the Tucson fireball interview online

If you have information about the Tucson fireball, please call us any time at (520) 742 3333 or toll free at 888-SKY-ROXX or visit Aerolite Meteorites.

Leigh Anne (above left), the author, and Lisa Marie of Sirocco Design filming How the Earth was Made for the History Channel, out in the Arizona boonies. Photograph by Stu Jenks, Fezziwig Photography © Aerolite Meteorites

At the recent screening party for the world premiere of Meteorite Men, my good friend and rather brilliant photography and design assistant, Leigh Anne DelRay, brought along a most interesting fellow, whom we now affectionately know as Bug Eric. Noted author, blogger, and world-famous entomologist, Eric R. Eaton and I are both members of the Society of Southwestern Authors, based here in Arizona.

A week before the party Leigh Anne recounted to me an amusing story in which Eric spoke to her about a small article he’d read in the SSA newsletter, The Write Word. It was a piece about a science writer and meteorite hunter who lived here in Tucson. After letting Eric comment at length about the article and about how he might like to meet that meteorite hunter in person, Leigh Anne wryly announced that the subject of the article was, in fact, her boss Geoff. So Eric got invited to our broadcast party and was kind enough to mention the event in his excellent blog Bug Eric, which we highly recommend. Congratulations to Eric on his recent appointment to the University of Massachusetts. I once attended a very raucous Jimi Hendrix tribute party at U Mass, but that tale is probably best left for an entirely different blog.

Meanwhile, Leigh Anne continues to do remarkable photographic work in the meteorite world. Her pictures are regularly featured on the Aerolite Meteorites website in our Meteorites for Sale Catalogue; in my monthly science column Meteorwritings for Geology.com; one was published in the Oscar E. Monnig Meteorite Collection Catalog; and others have been published in articles I wrote, co-wrote, or appeared in for Sky & Telescope, Sci Q magazine, the Write Word, and others. She also appeared with me in the History Channel’s documentary series How the Earth was Made — skulking around in a dry wash in the Arizona boonies looking for meteorites.

Leigh Anne is a great artistic talent and you can see more of her work at Callisto Images.

“I claim this asteroid in the name of the Meteorite Men . . .” At the Meteorite Men broadcast
party, the author plants a flag atop the 273-lb Brenham pallasite that he and Steve Arnold excavated
while filming the show. Photograph by Suzanne Morrison, Back Country Photography AZ © Suzanne Morrison.

Leigh Anne will be working with me and my other photography assistant, Suzanne Morrison of Back Country Photography AZ, on a major new meteorite project which we hope to unveil during the summer. Yeah, that’s going to be something special.

Stay tuned and . . .

WATCH THE SKIES!