Mr-Meteorite

Discovering a California Strewn Field (Part 1)

By Ruben Garcia

There where literally hundreds of meteorites in this area!

On Thursday evening November 16, 2006, I received an invitation via email from meteorite hunter extraordinaire, Rob Matson. Rob asked me if I would like to join him in hunting a few California dry lake beds. I was very excited because even though I’ve known about some of Rob’s amazing meteorite finds, I’d never had the opportunity to hunt with him. Rob is a very skilled hunter that can teach anyone a thing or two about finding a meteorite.

I emailed Rob promptly as I wanted to get details as soon as possible so that I could try to arrange my schedule to join him. Since this was the week before Thanksgiving I was pretty sure it would be my last free weekend for a while. I was really going to make an effort to be there. Unfortunately, when Rob replied he said that the area that he would be hunting was pretty far, about a six or seven hour drive. My heart sank, because no matter how I tried I felt like I just wouldn’t be able to make it.

After thanking Rob for the invitation but politely declining I began thinking about where I could go meteorite hunting for the weekend. The area needed to be fairly close but yet have a real possibility of finding meteorites. I had heard from several people that meteorites were being found near the California border. I had even tried to go there once or twice in the past but for one reason or another I had never quite made it.

“California here we come.” My son said in a sleepy voice just as I woke him at 4:45 a.m. on Saturday morning. Ruben Jr. has always impressed me, he will fight tooth and nail to get up early for school, but will happily rise long before dawn for a weekend meteorite hunting expedition. “We gonna find anything today?” he said as we merged onto the road that would lead us to the freeway. “Probably not” I said “but we’ll have fun, we always do.”

I begun getting a little concerned about the success of our weekend trip when after stopping for gas around 7:00 a.m. I noticed that I had a slow leak in my left rear tire. I quickly checked the spare and noticed that it was completely flat. I had never hunted for a meteorite in California before so I wasn’t really sure what kind of terrain to expect. But I knew it was a bad idea to go too far into the wilderness with a slow leak in one tire and no spare.

After a short debate, Ruben Jr. and I decided to chance it and forge ahead. I cautiously navigated the turn as we arrived at the unpaved road that we were supposed to take to our destination. It wasn’t the worst dirt road I’ve ever seen but I worried none the less. Just one sharp rock finding a soft spot on one of our tires could leave us stranded, and to make matters worse my normally dependable cell phone was showing “no service.”

“Why is it always like this?” I asked rhetorically. “Why can’t meteorites be easy to find?”

“Here comes another rut in the road.” My son informd me, just after feeling the jolt of the previous rut.

I’m not sure how far we had gone when I said ’“We’re gonna have to park and take the quad, that is unless we wanna chance being stuck out here.”

By the time we had unloaded the quad and begun meandering westbound it was already about 9:00 a.m. California time. My slow and careful driving had already taken its toll as we were nearly four hours into what was supposed to be about a two and a half hour trip. Not at all sure how much further we had to go, and not seeing much promise where we were, I had begun feeling doubtful about our trip. “Basalt, basalt, there’s nothing out here but basalt!” I complained.

Barely fifteen minutes had elapsed since we had parked and begun riding the quad, but it seemed much longer. “I don’t think we have the right spot.” I started to say when something to my right caught my eye. “Wait, what’s that?” I said with genuine enthusiasm. “What do you see?” Ruben Jr. asked, “ is it anything?” Without a word I drove in the direction of hundreds of stones big and small alike that looked “too good” to be true.

Carefully lowering my meteorite cane to the ground, I inched it close to one of the highly weathered stones that looked to be about as large as a medium sized potato. “I can’t believe it!” I shouted, as it jumped to my magnet. I hoisted it up slowly into my lap and removed it from the magnet while simultaneously making a quick assessment of the area. “It can’t be, they’re all meteorites!” I said in disbelief, as I slowly drive away.

Ruben Jr. being legitimately confused asked. “Dad, what did you say?” “Dad?” “Dad?” “Son, everyone one of those rocks is a meteorite!” I said in a semi-loud voice as to be heard over the soft purring of the quad. “What? He quips. “Then why are we driving away, lets pick ‘em up!” “We’re gonna pick ‘em up, just as soon as we get off of them, they’re everywhere!” I shouted.

Standing before hundreds of meteorites that are lying on the desert sand just waiting to be picked up is an unbelievable sight. Neither my son nor I could believe it, and we must have stood with our mouths open for a moment or two. Then, as if we had just won the lottery, Ruben Jr. lifted his hands up high and screamed, “This has got to be the best day ever!”  We exchanged “hi-five’s” over and over, first the right then the left! Then, all of the sudden he stopped, and as if he thought I was playing Ashton Kutcher in an episode of “Punked” he asked very seriously, “you’re not kidding right? “ I assured him that I was not and we launched back into the “we found a meteorite strewn field” dance. 

Moments later we composed ourselves and began the very tedious job of taking coordinates and snapping many insitu pictures. Though it is difficult work it is a labor of love for a meteorite hunter, and we were all smiles. Before Saturday Ruben Jr. had only found one meteorite, but by days end he had picked up over a hundred fragments and individuals.

Several times that morning Ruben Jr. and I announced that we were through picking up all the meteorites only to turn and find another pocket of meteorite crumbs just a few feet away. At one point we even packed our gear and drove away, then quickly turned around when we spotted a few fragments that had been hidden from sight right underneath our quad. 

Our final tally for the day when we counted all the specimens both large and small was four hundred and twenty five. The length and width of the strewn field was about sixty feet by sixty feet, with most of the specimens concentrated in the center. It looked pretty obvious that along with many smaller intact individuals a large meteorite had weathered into hundreds of fragments. We did search outside that area briefly and found no more meteorites. That said, I’ll bet we’ll go back and look at least one more time.

My Son and I picked up 425 individuals and fragments all together!

We found the strewn field at it about 9:15 a.m. after only a few minutes of hunting.

By about noon our bags were getting full of these highly weather chondrites.