[Arachnodisiac]

Super cool! Thanks for that. I will keep my eyes peeled as of March 20 or so, haha.

Originally Posted by rokman

Groovy!

But, when meteorites land it IS the perfect time of year lol.

All it takes is a trained eye and "plain rocks" vs "meteorites" becomes as apparent as night and day. I have people send me photos all the time asking if what they've found is a meteorite. And in the 12 years I've been doing it, not one person has come forth with an actual meteorite. They have very distinguishing features (all that have weird vocabulary, but simple to see)
fusion crust: black "fuzzy" crust on the outside of the rock. Egg-shell thin (or thinner; never thick)
Light grey interior (envision what moon rock looks like; grey... that's it)
Regmaglypts: small indentations, very smooth to the touch, about the size of a thumb print; actually kinda like pressing a thumb through clay would make about the right shape
roll-over lip: small lip on one edge of the rock; it's from the rock melting in the atmospher
flow-lines: when the little bits of metal in the rock get melted, they flow on the outside of the rock and when they harden, the end result are stark black thin (sub-millimetre) lines that stretch across the rock.

Next to that, the first thing I do when meteorite hunting and think I've "spotted" one on the ground, is I take a stick that I carry with me (sawed off hockey stick) and stick it to the rock (because I have a rare earth magnet attached to the end of it.) and if the rock sticks, WHAMMO! I am now excited and going to look closer at this rock; going to check for fusion crust, flow lines, roll-over lip and regmaglypts.

There's your cole's notes, arachnodisiac!