Hunting The Nighttime Fireball Of The Buzzard Coulee Meteorite | Meteorite Men | Spark

visitors from outer space crash land without warning and can library for thousands of years oh my god jeff knocking and steve arnold live to unearth these space rocks oh that sounds really good their quest is part science 4.56 billion years ago and part treasure hunt we found one yeah they're the meteorite men this is great on this adventure the guys head to the great white north canada for two very different hunts after a fireball is caught on tape big explosion and it's all over jeff and steve head to the site to hunt space rocks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars these meteorites are like lumps of gold then science separates the forest from the trees and that just virtually strips away all the vegetation revealing a new crater and virgin hunting grounds you found one already but these rare meteorites come at a price oh no [Music] here in canada it's about 50 degrees colder than we expected the forecast said it was going to be warm and we needed to get up here before the snow came and the snow beat us here there's no two ways about it i've lost my mind completely jeff knockin and steve arnold are in the prairie lands of saskatchewan canada to hunt for pieces of a rare meteorite this is great the guys know there are space rocks here because this fall is one of only a handful to be caught on tape those fireball videos just blow my mind just after sunset on november 20th 2008 a vast stretch of canada is lit up by a fireball five times brighter than a full moon there was a police video that captured this thing coming in and it was pretty phenomenal this thing tears through our atmosphere from space explodes right in front of the car and they get this drop dead fantastic video the space rock about the size of a desk weighing 10 tons hits the atmosphere faster than 31 000 miles per hour when you see one of those videos you go oh my god they travel really fast i know in the intellectual part of my brain that meteors hit the atmosphere at many many thousands of miles an hour but that's just the number when you see that video and it only lasts about a second from infinity to here big explosion and it's all over scientists immediately collect the amazing videos map the locations they were shot from and triangulate the landing zone of the fireball the data points to a big target in western saskatchewan but now they have to find the bullseye meteorite hounds academics and the curious scour the canadian prairie one week later 180 miles east of edmonton a discovery [Music] it wasn't a big lake spotted something black out there on the ice and the first one was found we have the very first piece of the meteorite that was recovered from the fireball last thursday people think meteorites when they come in they're on fire thanks to hollywood it's far more dramatic if you have a fireball coming in and it hits the ground and it blows up buildings nothing could be further from the truth the thing burns out miles up in the air you see from the fireball video it's it's only a second or two of a fire just enough to to toast the outside of the rock and then you've it's got a minute or two or three or four minutes of free fall in november in canada it's you know and it hits a frozen lake it's a cold rock hitting a cold lake the meteorite fall is named after the area where the pieces are found buzzard coulee the largest piece recovered is this monster weighing in at 13 kilograms nearly 29 pounds to buy a space rock of this size a private collector would have to shell out about 400 000 effectively these meteorites are like lumps of gold same kind of value the buzzer couli meteorite is an h4 chondrite so it's a meteorite that contains chondrules which were the first materials to form the solar nebula they're usually um millimeter size they're quite small to a fraction of a millimeter if we were to cut open one of those stones we'd see those little chondrals in there that are older than earth older than the solar system it kind of makes you feel small a 400 000 space rock gets everyone's attention the guys hear about the meteorite frenzy going on up in canada while on another expedition it was a real big deal big deal in canada big big deal worldwide definitely a big deal in the in the meteorite world amateur meteorite hunters recover about 110 pounds of specimens in a week and there's no end in sight buzzard the locals were really into it they were very interested it was absolutely great but winter is fast approaching and when the harsh weather blows in the hunters get blown out you just can't hunt for meteorites in the snow not these little stones and we can't hunt when the crops are there the farmers won't let us on their land understandably so we had a very narrow window during which we could hunt nearly a year after the fireball lit up the sky steve and jeff finally arrive at search location number one a cold and snowy location number one we should call it the snow field not the strewn field it is the buzzard coulee meteorites found so far outline a strewn field the area where the meteorites fell about six miles long and two miles wide location number one is right in the heart of it my concern is that we're looking for small stone meteorites in the snow in stubble yeah my concern is we're going to freeze that's a given well let's get going we're burning daylight you sure you want to do this you know how long you've been waiting to get up here a little frostbite isn't gonna stop me okay see you later i am not ready yet something about stevie's very speedy really anxious to get in the field be looking for a a little just a ping very distinct the meteorites that we're looking for in this section of the stream field are are quite small i would say sounds like junk marble-sized farm john a little bit bigger if we're lucky with the snow on the ground there's not much chance of seeing them got the first meteor wrong he's yelling at me already about something he hasn't found i don't even know what that is i'm gonna wear headphones connected to the detector i can hear a fainter signal and also they block out the sound of steve yelling at me every time he finds something that's not a meteorite so i've got a double purpose there buzzard coulee meteorites are classified as stone but they contain some iron the guys use high-tech metal detectors it could be a big one and a low-tech metal stick re-engineered for meteorite hunting stick a rare earth magnet duct tape it to the end of it and uh rare earth magnets going to be probably 10 times stronger than your refrigerator magnet strong enough that it's going to pick up a meteorite that's got any iron in it this reaches down if it picks it up that's pretty conclusive for a field test [Music] the treasured meteorites are black but so are some earth rocks and the magnet test is not infallible this is so wrong look at this it's a little piece of granite it's got enough iron in there that it sticks to the magnet it makes your heart jump and then it's just this stupid cosmic joke you have to have a real positive attitude it's almost like losing your keys you know you lost them in the yard and you're you're looking for them we knew they were there we were looking for them we're expecting it oh man there have got to be pieces might be able to see them maybe i'll see them just because we encounter adversity when we're in the field doesn't mean we're gonna stop this is a crazy difficult challenging weird and sometimes frightening business to be in location number one turns out to be a bust but the guys have heard about big meteorites found nearby before they can hunt this new area they need permission from the owner of the farmland hi big doggie the good news is the farmer is a collector too i'll show you the bigger one look at that the hired man actually fired a founder and he works yeah he works for you yeah it's like a star trek envelope well congratulations that's a that's a beautiful stone and quite valuable and the value is what a couple thousand yeah i would say yeah at least we'd like to ask permission to walk the property from you if that's okay if we're able to locate anything thanks a lot location number two is within spitting distance of the small lake where the first meteorite was found the famous lake this is it the fireball would have come right over here and boom that's where the very first pieces were found on the frozen lake well i i have a theory that if oh good if if we're moving we're going to stay warmer i like that so come on work with that sometimes it doesn't hurt to get a little lucky ah it's more very trash um um i think i got one yeah oh he's too far away oh man look at this wow so this is my first buzzard oh that's so cute this is probably gonna be worth 20 or 30 a gram so two to three hundred dollars this is cool this is so cool makes the whole trip worth it with steve's first meteorite in the bag jeff's competitive spirit kicks in but so far there's a whole lot of cold and just one small meteorite ah this is hard going in here ah oh that's so mean that's i thought it was the real thing because it looks so black on the outside but it's an earth rock it's not magnetic enough damn it i'm a little worried about jeff it's bloody ridiculous we just don't really have much chance of finding tiny black rocks mixed in with snow and all of this damn whatever it is not the member noid or anything just as jeff hits a wall steve's perseverance pays off there's one ah okay cool this is like maybe about 15 grams 16 grams not a completely crusted one what we'll call one that it's a hundred percent crusted means that the entire surface has a burnt fusion crust like like crust on a bloat for bread so 20 30 a gram you know this is like uh 300 maybe so hey haven't paid for the airplane ticket yet but we're getting there with two buzzard coulee fines steve now has about 500 worth of meteorites in his pocket jeff is cold and on a cold streak i might as well just randomly try and throw my magnet cane and harpoon meteorites for all the good it's doing i've been through this process many times that i hunt and i don't find anything and i get increasingly irritable irritable and frustrated and occasionally even take it out on steve how could there not be anything here it doesn't make any sense they're here just have to find them oh thank you gee if only i thought of that i'm so stupid i hate it here not that i'm angry or anything very expensive to mount these expeditions it's tiring it's frustrating i think you have to be slightly mad to do it no this is crazy damn it just when he's about to cash it in jeff gets the break he needs ah that's it excellent that is definitely the real thing a real meteorite and it's oriented as well that means that it it acquired a shape reminiscence of a shield when it traveled through the earth's atmosphere the the front of it melted leaving a rounded front and a flat back oriented meteorites are quite rare and that is a a feature that we only see in space rocks it's only little but it's really cool find number three weighing just under 28 grams jeff's meteorite is worth a cool thousand dollars we get the chance to see one of these fireball videos and then go and find the rock and you hold the rock and you look at the video and you go oh my god this comes from that it's an encounter with existence outside of our own world no doubt that that is the real thing and my hand's so cold after one minute without the glove up here in canada finding the space rocks is just half the battle we can't just take these home we'd love to meteorites are the cultural property of the canadian government and that just adds to the guy's frustrations it's made very clear to us that we're allowed to keep what we find but we're not allowed to take it out of the country without an export permit so we have to play the game we have to respect the rules the way they're set in this country where we're guests steve and jeff continue their frigid hunt this is brutal out here the weather is dangerously cold and getting colder the only way to keep warm is to keep moving it really annoys me when these earth rocks stick to the magnet i know the tough decision to continue the hunt despite the cold and red tape turns out to be a wise one just a short distance from find number three you want to see something cool jeff spots a rock that stands out look at that right there see how that's bluish black and red compared to everything else around here now watch this oh yeah beautiful wow so perseverance pays off sometimes even in the most adverse conditions it's horrible out here my brain is beginning to freeze even after a fourth find jeff realizes discretion is the better part of valor it's time to retreat it was just so cold it wasn't a question of it's uncomfortable we shouldn't really do it it's just dangerous it must be 12 degrees and we're out here hunting for these rocks with magnets on the ends of sticks which is completely mad come on get in the truck i'm out of here day one the guys found four beautiful pieces alien visitors that dropped in on canada worth upwards of fifteen hundred dollars day two the guys wake up to even colder temperatures this expedition to buzzard was easily the coldest weather in which i have ever hunted for meteorites or possibly ever done anything at all i'm not one to normally complain but it's biting cold freezing or not they have to hunt now because in the spring the crops will be planted and the fields will be off limits there's a nasty looking snow front moving in as well i think for the second day the guys are back at location number two they've moved to a neighboring wheat field they think hasn't been picked over yet talking with some of the neighbors it's it's like they've been found on all this all around us their hunch pays off steve oh yeah we were right to check out this field it's a beautiful fusion crusted stone really well preserved nice black crust nice i found one jeff you found one i found one excellent that's two in 10 minutes this is what we want no question about it how big is it 10 grams cool yeah that's about the size of this one oh nice oh that's really nice let's see if we can pull out a few more just as quickly as it pays off location number two dries up jeff and steve need a fresh lead good intel can be worth its weight in meteorites so the guys head to the southern end of the strewn field to share secrets with jim and loretta mitchell hello how are you guys cold it's cold the mitchells may be able to point the guys to some hefty space rocks and here's my little little cd there i think it's 55 grams that's not little loretta's most valuable buzzard coulee find is this 423 gram beauty at almost a pound it's worth about 10 000 would you like to hold this may we that is spectacular actually found on the road down by the fish pond that's pretty cool there might be some little pieces still jeff and steve's search for valuable pieces of the buzzard cooling meteorite has led them to the number one eyewitness came right from over about here and went down kind of an angle and he went right over your head oh yeah that's something don chipowich saw the fireball explode and one piece he collected is worth thousands of dollars more not because of its size but because of where it hit you've had one hit one of your buildings yes yeah wow okay here i found one that came off the roof uh they call it a hammer stone that's right you know the terminology so where is that stone now at my mother's you gave it to her yeah aren't you sweets yeah do you know how rare that is in in the scheme of things we have only a handful of recorded instances ever in north america oh of things being hit by meteorites have you been up on the ladder to check to see if there's an impact crater up there no way well if there was the the piece of metal would be worth money too oh yeah yeah a hammerstone impact can be a real windfall in 1992 this chevy malibu was worth maybe a couple of hundred bucks but on the night of october 9th a fireball streaked over peakskill new york and a 27-pound meteorite punched a hole in the malibu's trunk the celestial fender bender turned the beater into a collectible offered for sale at a hundred thousand dollars the meteorite malibu is still making money today it's been on tour around the world thousands of people line up to see the car whose trunk was caved in by a visitor from outer space with just a couple of hours left in the day the guys head to location number three near the frozen pond where loretta found her ten thousand dollar meteorite even if it's hard going we gotta we gotta put in a bit more time here [Music] oh that's more like it steve don't tell me oh wow that's more like it look at this beauty wow ah cash value on this would probably be 500 yeah this is starting to add up oh yes the guys now have eight meteorites worth thousands of dollars with only an hour of daylight left steve has devised a plan for mechanized gridding scientifically speaking it's trolling with magnets once you run the truck all right on the tailgate you keep warm for a little bit i'm gonna look out the back hey this might work and then maybe we'll take turns stop no okay go stop nope go stop oh okay go you're not driving over annie what's he complaining about now oh stop no okay go i could walk faster than this i am convinced that had he driven over a meteorite i would have seen it and i i didn't drive over a meteorite so it's my fault that he didn't find any using this hair brain scheme of his go a little slower if you can yeah well not that slow the irritating part for me is i was driving and not getting to do anything except driving he was sitting on the back going stop stop stop oh it's nothing okay go stop and then i eventually just had a meltdown i really can't stand any more of this this is ridiculous i'm done ah it's complete failure so we won't do that again hey the whole trip was worth it just to watch you uh blow a gasket thank you yeah frozen out of buzzard cooling the guys take their eight meteorites and head to the university of alberta a center for meteoritic studies in edmonton where scientists are eager to get their hands on them that's a pretty good haul chris heard studies the individual chondrules inside the meteorites with a million dollar electron scanning microprobe this chondrule is only about twice the width of a human hair they're out there in the solar system the very beginning of the solar system they're molten droplets they each form crystals under different conditions and then they all come together in this rock right and so you have the sampling like this grab bag of the solar system you know that part of the solar system all put together it's a grab bag of these of these little tiny pieces from the early days of the solar system beginning of the solar system that's very poetic it's beautiful steve and jeff know their rocks are h4 chondrites but for a scientific look at them they enlist the help of meteoriticist aaron walton these are beautiful pieces it's not a contest but mine are better they're bigger you're still you're still the champion don't worry steve would like to sell his specimens jeff is set on adding them to his collection and aaron wants to slice him up a meteoritis perspective the really interesting stuff is what's on the inside because that's where the story is right when aaron shines polarized light through thin slices of buzzard coulee meteorites the chondrals light up like stained glass windows have you discovered anything new and exciting i have yeah it's actually a very interesting sample it gives us a complete picture from 4.56 billion years ago when the chondrules were forming to later where it came as a fireball valuable meteorites like those from steve and jeff form another piece of a cosmic jigsaw puzzle that scientists in labs and universities continue to research while the work continues on buzzard coulee john duke here runs the slowpoke nuclear reactor lab why don't you give us a rundown on what we've been doing here with the buzzer coulee meteorite what we have here is what's called a gamma-ray spectrometer and if chris opens up the lead cave and the cave there is just to minimize background what we're looking at is the radionuclides that are generated when the meteorite was in space you can get an idea of the size of the meteorite when it hit the atmosphere we find meteorites and we often wonder can we extrapolate how big the original mass was and that's the work you're doing here so it's fascinating for us we were able to get a piece of the buzzard coulee meteorite within a week of it falling to the ground and we're able to put them in the detector just count what the radioactivity that's there and pick up things that that last only for a few weeks at most we'll remember that next time we recover a meteorite that's just fallen we'll be straight over yeah that's right that'd be great in a way you're trying to put a puzzle back together again if you think about it the ones that are closer to the surface of the rock in space will have more radiation because they're more exposed to cosmic radiation something that was two meters in diameter for example the samples if a sample came right from the center would have very very low level of activity compared with those on the edge of the meteorite have you been able to determine how big this was from the data or are you still crunching those numbers we're still crunching the numbers we're still working it's still a work in progress sorry sorry it's only forty thousand dollars yeah i know i know the guys asked chris about a rare impact crater he's investigating so you find really small ones and big ones right on the rim of the crater right when he offers the chance to see it in person steve and jeff can't pack fast enough he mentioned to us that it would be okay if we went to the white court meteorite crater we were just stunned so we go well okay we're in canada we found some buzzard cooling meteorites let's go to white court the white court impact crater it's protected by canadian law a chance to step inside it is enough to make any meteorite hunters heart race it was just discovered a couple of years ago and it was really big news in the meteorite world i have to teach this guy how to pack we were under the impression that it was totally off limits we're pretty jazzed to be on our way to see this thing that we'd only heard about the guys make the two hour drive from edmonton to white court the crater itself is hidden deep in the forest where you'll find only hunters loggers and grizzly bears the best way to get there atv let's get this unit activated steve and jeff are led by the scientists they think of as the gatekeeper randy kaufman spearheads the white court crater research and he knows the crater better than anyone oh yeah watch out for bears [Music] [Music] damn it oh where's jeff [Music] hey guys hey steve i'm gonna race you to the crater [Music] meteorites are one thing craters are the interaction between big meteorites and our planet this is what they do to us and there are only a handful of them that you can really revel in the experience of standing there and going this is where it happened and take it all in whoa a classic move ladies and gentlemen but notice how my metal detector never touched the ground i'm replaceable my f75 is not it's one of only four in existence and my biggest worry is i'm going to damage the detector because this is a really sensitive piece of equipment the f75 is jeff and steve's secret weapon lightweight and extremely sensitive this high-tech metal detector will be their only shot at finding iron meteorites today but for now the detectors have to be left behind you cannot hunt in or near the crater there's a 50 000 fine jeff hasn't seen the crater yet but he faces a challenge just getting up to the rim oh it's really slippery they enforce it can i be fined for damaging that tree and they should there's nothing else like it in the whole world it's absolutely amazing a find here could lead to the most fantastic discovery of their meteorite hunting careers [Music] how cool is this the white crater it's kind of the perfectly sized crater because it's big enough that you go wow a meteorite made this it's big the white court crater 120 feet across and 20 feet deep it's like a coffee cup it remained undiscovered until just two years ago there's a reason there's only a dozen craters in the world with the meteorites still there the big ones totally disintegrate you got this little range where it's big enough for a crater but not quite big enough to destroy 100 of the rocks that's the category we're in here we've got signs all over protected site fifty thousand dollar fine but are we allowed to take ourselves down into the mouth of this fantastic feature look at him go i i've got no traction on these boots they're so smooth hey my ballet training didn't really help with this we get to see this incredible beautiful meteorite crater that's so very well preserved and actually walk down inside it and stand there and go god this is where it happened this is where the meteorite landed i'm sorry but i can't resist this i can't resist this i can't resist it wow right out of the sky can you imagine we are right in the bullseye i'm usually not lost for words and i just lay down on my back on the floor of the crater and just looked up i just couldn't get over how great it was wow can you imagine this is exactly where it happened out of the sky it was an experience i will never forget and then to be there to be standing in it it was just incredible i can't even tell you how brilliant it was it was such a great experience come on get up so how old is this thing oh we have the maximum age through carbonating of about 1100 years 1100 years okay thick vegetation keeps the crater well hidden in fact you can't see the crater for the trees it's pretty dense so right now i mean you've come in a great time to actually see the crater because you can actually see the crater for years the local hunters and loggers knew there was a big hole in the woods but it wasn't until 2007 when a couple of brothers went hunting with metal detectors and when they found some pieces of iron shrapnel around the crater they were like oh this is this could be very important and then they brought it to our attention scientists first thought high-resolution satellite images could pinpoint the crater but there was no sign of it no one knew it but they were searching the wrong maps the maps they needed were in the hands of loggers lidar or light detection and ranging maps loggers use lidar to map forests and measure growth flying lidar over the forest and bouncing laser light off the ground creates 3d images and that's the scanner mirror that's the webcam it's really used a lot in forestry because you can fly an air aircraft with laser light bouncing from the aircraft to the ground and you can map you know where you want to log but a certain amount of the laser light bounces off the ground surface scientists deleted the data the loggers were interested in the trees and for the first time revealed just the ground and a perfectly formed crater that's what really let us see white cork crater we haven't done any measurements out in the field of the depth or the width or anything we just use the lidar data the crater sits on land owned by the canadian government which acted quickly to create a protected zone a box 200 meters by 200 meters taking any meteorites from here means jail time and a 50 000 fine but just off the southeast corner is an area where no one has hunted before and randy is taking the guys right to it i'm not aware that anybody's really searched down there yet so we can go over there you can get the first shot let's go let's go now it would have been worth it just to come to see the crater and then get on the airplane and leave definitely we got to go hunt it's a once in a lifetime chance to discover new and valuable meteorites come on what's taking you so long i'm getting on my battle armor to do battle with the snow that is hiding those meteorites from me a newly discovered impact crater rare meteorites virgin territory it's a meteorite hunter's dream come true we were so excited to see the crater and then we were even more excited now we're gonna get to hunt and christy can't help think in the back of your mind of course we're gonna find stuff because they told us there's stuff to be found and we're the meteorite men of course we're gonna find some we get this great opportunity and it's a long trek up on the atvs it was it was like spooky [Music] oh no jeff what my detector bro it scared me it broke at the worst possible time because finally after all of this we can hunt and then that second he goes oh no my detector is broken it really was such a cruel thing because there's nothing you can do if you don't have a detector out there you're out of luck let's have a look he's a one-man equipment wrecking machine we could splint the detector's broken limb we've both kind of got this thing in our mind about how can we fix the problem with what we've got on hair look we've got we've got duct tape we've got plastic bags look look plastic plastic knives and forks from our lunch supplies what about i think if you put a knife down here oh yeah that might work that's actually a good idea we made a splint does tape need to be kind of warm for the glue in it to work move your finger [Music] what would we do without tape duct tape doesn't work you just haven't used enough yet wow instant metal detector repair i'm very impressed well let's see if it works if their field repair doesn't work steve will have to sit out this once in a lifetime hunt let's have a look hey it might still work cool and it worked we we just lucked out and then we go well now finally after all of this we can hunt okay so here it is we were allowed to hunt in very clearly defined areas and this is a corner post so essentially you can hunt outside of that okay oh so yeah you're working the wrong side okay safe in danger safe in danger so you guys have some good hunting i'm gonna go back and grab something to eat it's the last day of the expedition and there are only a few hours of daylight left after dark in these woods the hunters become the hunted may the best man win may the best meteorite man win the white court meteorites the guys are hunting for are iron shrapnel like bits of a bomb casing the valuable pieces were torn from the meteorite that blasted the crater in the canadian forest the impacting body shattered into thousands of fragments that takes a lot of energy to destroy a piece of iron nickel that may have been the size of a desk or a refrigerator this detector is so sensitive it keeps picking up my boot we spent a lot of time hunting and for a long time we didn't find anything this is insane try to hunt for meteorites in the snow hey i got a target oh that sounds promising steve i got a target i think we better dig that one 10 10 and 11. [Music] i like that sound don't you i want to get your expert pinpointing skills to work on this guy um it's still in there oh good do you need a shovel oh come on it's a freaking washer why would there be a washer out here in the middle of nowhere that sucks it's extremely irritating and frustrating and disappointing thanks for nothing called me all the way over i am so sorry to interrupt your nap time and then you start going well are there actually any meteorites out here or is it just junk well the white court washer it's a horrible experience i don't recommend it i work up a hunger and i need some protein he works up a hunger and wants to chew on some grass i'm taking a break it's lunch time for civilized people me too what are you eating no ground-up animal parts is what that is mm-hmm our spits what are you eating i'm eating a wonderful organic apple now added chemicals in the animal parts what do you think i like them covered in caramel whatever you know i mean if that's what it takes to float his boat and get him going that's fine i just think it's kind of funny winter's coming it's freezing cold there's going to be a blizzard any day and this will be under snow for the next six months so it's do or die today we just we just got to find something over here that was amazing timing well that sounds nice and loud it does white court meteorites are extremely rare oh man that's something really good less than 40 pounds have ever been recovered try it again not a single white court meteorite has ever made it to market the first one could start a record-setting bidding war okay that should make it a little easier for you look at me moving an entire tree a great lumberjack thanks i just don't really like the plaid shirts it's not really my style [Music] are you kidding me this is a shoe what is a fossilized human shoe doing out here look it's got a it's got a horseshoe on the bottom of the heel no wonder you got a big signal from it well that was a big disappointment crazy shoes that sounds good i got a target don't tell me it's the other shoe sole my detector really went off i got a fantastic signal i thought that's probably another boot with a horseshoe nail to it want to test it for me [Music] this may be right hunting work is for the birds oh ah holy cow that is definitely a meteorite oh my god wow way to go [Applause] it's my turn it's my turn to hold it wow what a cool shape look at that it's a white court crater iron meteorite suddenly i feel a whole lot better isn't it funny the way that works well done thank you now it's my turn did you bring lunch with you i just brought some tea to celebrate i thought a little cup of tea in the field after finding a white cork crater iron meteorite would be appropriate and you'll be pleased to know that it's not that awful tea that you drink it's english breakfast it's just the way things are done steve cheers oh that smells so good [Music] ah yes that totally made my day [Music] jeff is a bonafide meteorite collector steve is in it for the money and just after jeff's find steve gets his first hit 50 feet away maybe we no hey wait wait wait that was nice i was happy for him but i hadn't found anything yet so um it it sent me off come on should be sticking to a magnet there jeff [Music] i got one and i found my little sixth grammar check it out [Music] jeff i traipse up the hill and uh around the corner showed it to jeff jackson what are you doing it's a little guy you found one already yeah we just found one oh wow oh that is such a shrapnel fragment we're like little kids we still get so excited about this it's not as big as yours but it's real wow it is definitely real yay one for what we found two pieces yeah okay i got the gps's yeah that was so great i haven't even finished marking the gps on my binder he just runs up over the hill like a bull i found one i gotta go wear the gps he's so crazy these are thousand dollar pieces we're finding this is like cool just when the hunt starts to really pay off the sun begins to set they make one last push what you got there i don't know this rock comes out on my magnet what it is shrapnel i mean it came from the piece it's definitely a meteorite that's totally different it is this vine doesn't look like the sharp-edged shrapnel they expect steve and jeff are baffled look how prepared you are your little blue towels for them to keep them warm it's got a little bit of a little bit of shrapnel like markings there on that side but this is so rounded my theory is is that it was a piece of the outside of the meteorite that did get melted a little bit was rounded it got ripped off that's amazing find number three weighs in at 150 grams and could fetch 20 a gram that puts a 3 000 price tag on it if they can get an export permit according to what's been found here it's a big one it's in the top five percent or so fantastic good one good one wow that was just that's just really cool time is running out and they have to clear out of the site hey steve oh that sounds really good ah what is that oh well we must we moved it there there holy cow [Laughter] that's a meteorite wow that is amazing it's like a claw that is so torn up that's actually one of the larger pieces that's been found at the crater we ended up significantly increasing the total known weight of all of the pieces that have been found it was astonishing at twenty dollars a gram you're looking at a five thousand dollar meteorite that just came out of the ground that's that's that big but we're not allowed to take it out of the country without an export permit we can't just put them in the bag and take them home the guys raced them back to the university of alberta to show dr chris heard this was perhaps the most exciting one oh look at that wow see you can really look at how sharp those edges are you can really see how how shrapnel like it is like like the meteorite just ripped itself apart and you've pulled these pieces that are of the metal apart it's really like what bomb shrapnel looks like yeah indeed at the end of the day they recovered four meteorites worth a total of about ten thousand dollars if jeff decides to sell some sometimes you find something that's just too nice to sell it goes into the collection that's fine it was so taxing i can't wait to sell them

Channel: Spark

Views: 20,741

Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, building, full documentary, space documentary, bbc documentary, Science documentary, meteorite men, meteorite hunting, spark documentary, meteor hunting, meteorite hunters, meteor hunters, finding meteorites, meteor man, how to hunt, meteor men, how to find meteorites, hunting for meteorites, ufo documentary, meteorite documentary, meteorite stone, metal detecting finds

Id: A-xfNsVwCn8

Length: 47min 34sec (2854 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 08 2021