Coyote Dry Lake

I was heading out to look for meteorites in Arizona with a group of friends and had an hour or two of daylight left as I entered Barstow, so I decided to stop by Coyote Dry Lake and poke around.  Even though I've probably spent 100 hours at Coyote and only ever found 2 meteorites I figured it was worth a shot.

The surface was still spongy from recent rains, but just as the sun set to the west something hopped onto my magnet.  Upon examination it turned out to be a 2.3g fusion crusted chondrite.  Sometimes you just get lucky.  On-wards to Arizona!

Mohave Mountains

The Mojave Mountains strewn field is relatively new, having only been discovered in 2016.  The meteorites there are "new" as well, scientists estimate they fell to Earth only 60-70 years ago (despite having been formed 4.5 billion years ago!).  The ground is typical desert pavement and requires a metal detector to pick out the space rocks from the Earth rocks.

The first day of hunting resulted in one find for our group, a nice little 2.6g meteorite found by Dave.  I had to leave that night to head home, but the rest of the group was going to continue the hunt on Sunday.

On Sunday Jason made a great find, 3 separate fragments that fit together to form one rock.  I hope to return here soon and find one of my own.

Photo of Jason's 3 finds reassembled.