I think I found a meteor crater!!!

[Spoons]

And if you get that metal detector and can find something I imagine that would be spur along the interest of geologists, which seems like an important step in getting your name on any craters.

[Luckmeister]

My biggest question is why you are broadcasting all this on BAUT. Precious metal prospecting has been a hobby of mine for decades and one of the first things I learned when making a discovery is to keep my big yap shut and quietly research what I have found. That research would include:

1. Ownership of the land and mineral rights status.

2. If it's public land, what are my rights of access and claim.

3. If there's no legal problem, visit the site and do some prospecting.

I'm sure you know meteorites can be worth a LOT of money. Perhaps your only motivation is excitement of discovery and maybe bragging rights but I would at least find out land ownership (if you haven't already) before setting foot on it.

Good luck, this sounds like fun!

[BluesCan]

My wife spent the last three days crying as I quietly bought the claims. What did you think????? I am doing ALL that!

[BluesCan]

Check my avatar! that's a shatter cone. sent the pics to my web guy to post tomorrow!

[BluesCan]

This will blow your mind!!! 54 13 30N 125 38 45W Google Earth co-ordinates. Use the ruler click on co-ordinates measure 0.6 km at 45 degrees! That's the radius follow it's circumfrence! Don't even think about mining this one it's private land. The whole cluster of roads and houses is inside the rim!

[BluesCan]

" Low" by Cracker.
She came a million miles to see me.
She sank her eyes into Northern BC.
I will announce it.
To the world.
I am finished.
Joseph Driscol

[beskeptical]

Check my avatar! that's a shatter cone. sent the pics to my web guy to post tomorrow!

I'll wait for the larger image. I can't see much in the avatar image.

[CaptainToonces]

You don't think these could be kettle features?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettle_%28geology%29

[BluesCan]

Web designer must have been too busy today to post my new pics so I'll give it a try here.how???

[schlaugh]

Best bet is to upload the images to a Flickr or Photobucket account and then post the link. From the BAUTForum rules:

8. Hotlinking and large images

Try to avoid putting in links to images directly from someone else's website. This can add a lot to their bandwidth, and then the host has to pay for it. In other words, if you see an image you like on an astronomy site, put in a link to that site, but don't use the [IMG] tags so the image loads into your post from their site directly. If you really want an image in your post, put it in a public site someplace and link to it from there. One exception would be from sites like NASA or universities, where bandwidth is not such an issue. If you own the image, then you can upload it to the board yourself.

Additionally, don't embed a huge image (meaning an image that's over 100k or extends beyond the right-hand edge of a typical display) inline using the [IMG] tag but link to it instead. We still have dialup users and others with limited bandwidth for whom downloading a large image would be a significant annoyance.

[BluesCan]

That sounds well beyond this one finger typer.

OK got a picture for ya but it's on my albums. Sorry, only way I knew how to put pics on here and I don't want to lose ya!!

Drop your zoom to 75% to view it, it's a little close

[BluesCan]

Ok, web guy did his thing late tonight and got the rest of the pictures up on my site. I know I'm not to be promoting it but I don't have time or brain power to figure out how to get the new flyover and shatter cone rocks pictures on here with captions so you know what they are! I rented a metal detector today. The instructions said you get better with practice but my son and I were able to right away find 3 flattened beer cans under an old part of the roadside in the pitch dark. Wow! LOL. Good for the enviroment and 15 cents refund too! Gonna be swingin that baby tomorrow, probably will get arms like the hulk cause it ain't light! I need one with the batteries in a pack on your back or something like that. Maybe on a belt? If you're going to do it all day, might as well make it easy! I'll just swing it for a few minutes and then dig one up. Ha ha. Just a few inches under the soil so I'm not dig dig diggin all day either

[Luckmeister]

Ok, web guy did his thing late tonight and got the rest of the pictures up on my site. I know I'm not to be promoting it but I don't have time or brain power to figure out how to get the new flyover and shatter cone rocks pictures on here with captions so you know what they are! I rented a metal detector today. The instructions said you get better with practice but my son and I were able to right away find 3 flattened beer cans under an old part of the roadside in the pitch dark. Wow! LOL. Good for the enviroment and 15 cents refund too! Gonna be swingin that baby tomorrow, probably will get arms like the hulk cause it ain't light! I need one with the batteries in a pack on your back or something like that. Maybe on a belt? If you're going to do it all day, might as well make it easy! I'll just swing it for a few minutes and then dig one up. Ha ha. Just a few inches under the soil so I'm not dig dig diggin all day either

Unless it's a very recent meteor fall or in a hard-packed desert environment, you're gonna be dig dig diggin' if you expect to find anything. All modern detectors are very light now except for a few highly specialized machines. They may be renting you a pretty old one. That's ok, they'll work pretty well for detecting iron-laden rock but you should use a large coil, like 12" dia. for depth (maybe a little smaller if you're in tight areas). Practice with it by burying some iron-content items of varying sizes and depths and tweak your controls for best detection. Practicing in the air instead of through soil isn't as effective but will still help you learn your machine.

If you were looking for gold, you'd have to have a better machine and learn it better but all machines are pretty sensitive to iron. Hopefully, your machine has a manual ground ballancing option. Learn to use it. That adjusts the machine to your soil conditions. It requires a little more tweaking while detecting, but gives better results than automatic. I almost never use automatic ballancing, especially if it's an older machine.

Be sure to get a reasonably strong permanent magnet. You may want to attach it to a stick of comfortable length. All meteorites contain some iron content and will be attracted to it. Even the pros can be fooled by a rock's appearance, but the magnet isn't. You may find non-meteorite ferrous rocks that look and feel like a meteorite, so you'll still have to have a lab do the final analysis.

Your best asset when metal-detecting will be patience.

Could you tell me the make and model of the detector?

Mike

ETA: One other thing -- if you are getting tired quickly, you may be swinging the detector too fast. Slow down and be methodical. That rock ain't goin' nowhere.

Another ETA: If you're not already using headphones, get them. They'll help you hear the faint signals and your batteries will last longer.

[PetersCreek]

Since this thread long ago quit being about Q&A...and likely never really was...moved to Science and Technology.

[CaptainToonces]

my son and I were able to right away find 3 flattened beer cans

Maybe they were flattened by the impact

[Nicolas]

*crater rim shot*

[beskeptical]

I don't see shatter cones in those images, BluesCan. I found you another resource for identifying shatter cones: STALKING THE WILY SHATTER CONE: A Critical Guide for Impact-Crater Hunters There is a particular caution related to our other discussions.

Circular Surface Shape or Circular Deformation Pattern. Most currently-accepted impact structures were first recognized from a circular shape or as an area of anomalous circular deformation in otherwise undeformed rocks. But a circular pattern is not evidence of impact. There are many non-impact geological features that also produce circular patterns: diatremes, salt domes, calderas, gneiss domes, tectonic cross-folding, and eroded sedimentary uplifts. A circular pattern can only indicate a possible impact site and perhaps point to specific locations for further search and sampling.

As for Luckmeister's comment about something buried too deep to detect, that's not necessarily true. The depth of an object depends on the ground it hits, speed at impact (terminal velocity or not), and type of meteorite. If an impact force was great enough to make a crater and shatter cones, that suggests a lot of force and heat. Around Meteor Crater in AZ, there was lots and lots of nickel-iron-terrestrial rock mixes where the meteorite melted, combined with the material it struck and fell out like a splash. I have some pieces of it.

[Luckmeister]

As for Luckmeister's comment about something buried too deep to detect, that's not necessarily true. The depth of an object depends on the ground it hits, speed at impact (terminal velocity or not), and type of meteorite.

That's right. But I didn't mean that he would definitely have to go deep to find anything at all, which I now see is how it sounded. My point was that with the the softer wetter ground of British Columbia than an area like Arizona, and not a fresh crater, he should be willing to dig deeper than the "just a few inches" he was talking about.

[BluesCan]

The angle it came in at makes me hopeful that it bounded or such. But where does a 20 000 km/hr groundball go???

[PetersCreek]

What method did you use to determine the angle?

[BluesCan]

Looking at the first crater, the central uplift was largest at at point which I figure gave it a heading of 220 degrees!?!?!

[PetersCreek]

You think the heading angle had something to do with whether it bounded or not?

[BluesCan]

Different one hit a southeast facing hill so I was hoping it glanced off. 54 13 3N 125 39 6W See the circle on the green hill face. It's there because you can see the circle with only aspen trees in it as you drive towards it on HWY 16. I don't just see something on Google Earth, it's there on the ground plain as day. ALL these features are.

[PetersCreek]

I'll readily grant that you're seeing real features. What we don't have is compelling evidence to support your conclusion that these features are impact craters. They could be but more than likely, they are not. There are several good posts in this thread that provide plenty of reason for you to temper your enthusiasm but you seem to be ignoring them.

[BluesCan]

That's because a perfect circle on flat ground can't be made by the same geological activity that would make same perfect circle on a slope. Not a mud geyser or a kettle hole or a glacial morain or anything. It wouldn't be round - it would "run -off" and not be round

[BluesCan]

Don't forget, for those of you down south it's summer. Up here, we still have lots of snowpack to melt, so the rocks I'm finding or digging up are either on the eroded cuts on the highway (in front of the hill in the last post) or under a tree where I can get to the ground. Wait til rockhounding weather gets here baby!

[beskeptical]

No matter how you recovered the rocks you think are shatter cones, they do not have the features of shatter cones in any of the images.

Evidence it might be an impact crater:
Shape
There should be more craters on the planet than have been found.

Evidence it might not be an impact crater:
You have not found any meteoric material.
Crater shaped geological features that are not impact craters are very common.
Retreating glaciers leave kettle ponds.
Meteorite craters in BC are more rare because they have to be newer than the last ice age.
BC has a rainy climate increasing the speed of erosion.
The rocks you've found do not appear to be shatter cones.

[BluesCan]

[QUOTE=The rocks you've found do not appear to be shatter cones.[/QUOTE]

They don't look like shatter cones do they? Maybe the geologists need to widen their definition to include rocks like this. 10 billion rocks came out of the hole. only a few are going to have features like these. Ease up dude maybe I can show the world something they have been missing. This isn't exact and ALL the rock dudes aren't right ALL the time. They guess too. Who taught the first geologist? Himself! Was he right? He probably thought he was!

[PetersCreek]

They don't look like shatter cones do they? Maybe the geologists need to widen their definition to include rocks like this.

If they widen the definition to include marshmallow creme pies, I guess anything you find could be used to support your premature conclusions. But that's not how science works.

10 billion rocks came out of the hole. only a few are going to have features like these.

If your rock does not bear the identifying features of a shock cone then by definition, it is not a shock cone. If you think your sample is otherwise evidence of a meteoric impact, then you need to explain why it is...and why it is not a result of some other geologic process.

Ease up dude maybe I can show the world something they have been missing. This isn't exact and ALL the rock dudes aren't right ALL the time. They guess too. Who taught the first geologist? Himself! Was he right? He probably thought he was!

In point of fact, geology is painstakingly exact, as are virtually all sciences. But sure, scientists (geologists included) make guesses of sorts. They're called hypotheses, which aren't just uninformed guesses they make and leave at that. They base a hypothesis on known principles and observations, then test it to see if it's supported by evidence. If it's not, they reject the hypothesis and develop another. Lather, rinse, repeat until one works.

You, on the other hand, have apparently skipped the hypothesis step completely and jumped directly to a conclusion. Trying to discredit geology as an inexact science will not bolster your case. Your claim must stand or fall on its own merit. You've got your work cut out for you.

[BluesCan]

As a welder dealing with stress fatigue in metal and reading where and how the stress reached a point where it causes a structure (piece of metal) to fail (where I come in and fix things) is what I have been doing for twenty years. I can theorize how these rocks got to the shape they are in by using this experience. Look up fractography in rocks. How many studies do you think were conducted on regular rock and high velocity stressed rock? Look up columnar joints. The ride on the helicopter was so I could get closer to the ones I see here. Mistastin Impact Structure in Labrador, Canada has similar columnar joints. I look for craters in a geographic similar zone for my comparisons. Hoping to put a pic on my albums but image won't upload. This site is all about yak yak and no pics. Get on a truck forum. EVERBODY GOTS PICS because everbody wants to show off. Sigh. (Picture is from my garage roof because I was too excited on the ride to pull out the still camera and the video is giving my hunny grief in the download. Anyone here have an Everio? You know what I mean then. LOL)