Niche Biz: Meteor Farming
For two weeks, Steve Arnold trudged through the dusty farmland of Kiowa County, Kansas, a 6-foot rope trailing over his shoulder. Tied to the end of the rope was a metal detector cobbled together from PVC pipe and duct tape. Back and forth Arnold paced, pulling the jury-rigged device across the dirt, hunting for meteorites. He had already found a few, but nothing bigger than 100 pounds or so. Mostly, he found horseshoes. And beer cans.
On a Thursday afternoon, his rig yelped, a shrill beep sounding through his headphones. To speed things up, Arnold attached his contraption to a tractor. He drove forward, tires pulling in the fine soil, and the detector crescendoed to an electric wail. After digging down about 5 feet, Arnold scrabbled into the hole with a shovel and started clearing. Finally, the blade clanged against something metallic. The more dirt he moved, the more meteorite he exposed.
About the size of a beer keg, the rock weighed 1,430 pounds, the largest pallasite ever found in the US. By Arnold’s reckoning, it was worth more than $1 million.
For the past decade, these Indiana Jones types have found a ready market among collectors and art gallery owners, who have come to see meteorites as high-end decorative objects.
Photo by Brent Humphreys.
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