Meteorite Men | S03 E04 | Dronino Russia

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meteorites alien invaders that race through our atmosphere and crash to earth without warning steve arnold and jeff notkin live to exhume these [Music] the meteorite men they've chased space rocks all across the globe but until now they've never explored the huge country of russia a landmass so vast that texas can fit into it almost 25 times they're hunting for one of the rarest types of meteorites found on earth an attack site they're a bit of an enigma we don't know where they come from we don't really know how they're formed they'll be hunting far from civilization in a tiny place called dronino hunting in rural russia presents challenges more trash than a scrap heap giant blood-sucking flies ow first blood and lots of vodka they've actually been drinking vodka now for two and a half hours they've traveled 6 500 miles can the meteorite men rescue space treasure from the depths of the russian countryside wow sounds good definitely something's here space rocks traveling at an astounding 17 000 miles per hour meteorites careened to earth and remain buried until now after more than a day traveling jeff and steve's first stop is moscow jeff moscow russia it's your first bit of russian it means roughly how's it going it's going good i should hope so because we are standing just outside red square this enormous red wall behind you is part of the outer fortifications of the kremlin and behind us the magnificent saint basil's cathedral it's one of those things you've seen so many times in pictures that when you see it in real life isn't it fantastic it is it really is but are there meteorites in there well not there exactly i thought it would be memorable and spectacular to ask steve to meet me under the walls of the kremlin in moscow there are saint basil's cathedral here's red square there's the kremlin what could be more fantastic in cinematic than that i have two amazing things for you one is a meteorite hunt and the second we have rendezvous with contact we go to a special restaurant and they give you intelligence okay so if you're ready to begin the adventure i'm always ready holy spirit okay 1847 to 1921 he looks very stern yeah he's aged one yeah well one of the greats [Music] can you read that up there uh planetarium no who no it's plus it's planetary what do you think it looks like the solar system only opened three weeks ago they have an amazing meteorite collection i mean not only great pieces but an extraordinary selection of meteorite types of of representative classes i feel very privileged we're among the first visitors what i really wanted to show you is right over here the collection of large meteorites of particular interest is dronino which is where we are headed yes it's a very impressive piece as you well know dronino is a rare attack side and nickel rich iron meteorite and so many of the pieces have this distinctive sort of flattish scoot shape and they do remind me of shrapnel but anyway that is what we're looking for so i want you to set your internal meteorite radar i want you to calibrate it on that piece and i want you to find a piece at least that big okay i think you're up to the task i'm up for it excellent jeff surprised me with a visit to the planetarium which just opened and had this most amazing meteorite collection in it including a dranino that when i saw that it got my heart pumping that's what i'm here to get still hours from their final destination the guys forego the usual tourist spots red square gorky park and the kremlin choosing instead to come to the corner of lenin and pomperovo to salute a true space pioneer yuri gagarin the first man in space this is my favorite statue and monument in moscow the amazing recognition of yuri gagarin's flight the first man in space in 1961 gagarin took off from earth and into history books making a 108 minute voyage in his vostok 1 spacecraft think about lasting into space the first human ever to leave our planet quite a courageous fellow he went up into space on a quest for knowledge and we're looking for things that fell out of space onto our planet in our own quest for knowledge so let us away let's go meteorites are sometimes called the poor man space probe to study outer space we don't have to go to them they come to us but what can we learn from ancient space rocks like the one that fell on dranino russia dr lawrence garvey deciphers meteorite dna at arizona state university in tucson the reason we study meteorites such as dranino is to really begin to understand how the solar system formed how the bodies formed how for instance the earth formed and it's very possible that by understanding meteorites we can gain an insight into the future of our solar system each meteorite is a snapshot into a particular moment in our solar system's history the mineral composition shape and internal structure provide clues to the evolution of our universe steve and jeff make the five-hour drive to the dronino impact site 170 miles southeast of moscow they've arranged to hunt alongside their friends and famed russian meteorite hunters sergey afanasev and dima sadalenko who are in the middle of a week-long excursion at dronino we ended up on a dirt track that was so narrow the trees were brushing along both sides of the car and then we rounded a bend and here's the russian camp and there our friends demon sergei just having a high old time hello finally sergey and dima are two of the best meteorite hunters in the world they've hunted some of the biggest and best strewn fields in russia all over the planet sergey has an exclusive land use agreement with the owner of the dranino property and striking a blow for u.s russia relations he has invited jeff and steve to join his expedition we are the first non-russians ever to hunt here so it's an enormous privilege and that's going to be a tough one to beat although they all live in and around moscow for a few weeks each year sergey dima and about a dozen friends and family members camp out at the site and hunt for meteorites this is almost like their summer vacation spot it's a half a day's drive out and and they hunt here a lot [Music] of course jeff and steve aren't here for a vacation well we're ready to go if you are the main reason we're here is to search for the extremely rare meteorite type known as an attack site it's an iron meteorite and it was formed in a somewhat different manner from other iron meteorites attack site means without structure and refers to the lack of a vitmenstatin pattern which is visible within other iron meteorites when they are cut etched and polished however the attack site shows no such pattern and instead reveals only a mirror-like finish when polished they're a bit of an enigma we don't know where they come from we don't really know how they're formed sergey and dima's camp is in the heart of the meteorite strike zone or strewn field we're in the strewn field now yes yes so there could be meteorites under us yeah yeah and around yeah yeah one was found maybe 50 meters from the camera okay the first dranino was found in 2002 by a local man looking for mushrooms while the first rock was found relatively recently there is no historical record of the meteorite's impact since the area has been inhabited since the 12th century researchers believe the meteorite fall must predate the settlement of the area it's not like residents could have missed the fall scientists estimate it would have triggered an explosion equivalent to approximately 100 tons of tnt steve and jeff have brought several high-end metal detectors to locate the iron meteorites at dranino all detectors work on the same principle a signal is sent through a coil and is broadcast into the ground as an electromagnetic field and countering metal objects alters that field and that change in frequency is heard on a speaker jeff and steve's high-end models also have an identification feature the detector displays a number from 1 to 100 indicating what type of metal is being detected for dranino meteorites the sweet spot is between 40 and 60 on the detector scale that means iron steve and jeff are eager to find some russian space treasure but before they hit the field [Music] yeah now we have more chances more chances they proposed his host for our good hunting luck and it was time to get out on the strewn field and put that good luck to use so this is where they are yeah almost almost yeah all right see your cats later bye we're going to find some meters to get to know the site each meteorite man teams up with a russian hunter to start steve pairs with dima and jeff with sergey target but not ours you can tell that it trash uh yeah by the figure oh from from the number yeah so we're looking for something around 40 uh more high from up to 60 oh okay or maybe [Music] hmm [Music] i think something is here that sounds good [Music] oh i like this sound this is here what is this what is this [Music] oh it is here here small but still we found it that was a lot of noise that's a real media wrong for hundreds of years the countryside here has been cultivated for farming and that means machinery and machinery means metal [Music] cute that sounds quite good what number do we have 42 oh maybe it's here sounds like it's right on the surface why it is chain it is a chain big chain wow four very strong man [Music] a kilometer away from jeff and sergey steve and dima have a possible target in their crosshairs yeah okay yeah kiwi's on yeah that's looking even rustier yeah they have to check yeah it can never be easy that's why i told you it is not haunted enough because there is a lot of trash well no wonder you keep hitting them if you don't pick up your trash but anyway then you have fun finding the truth oh yeah fun advice when there are no signals at all it's boring yeah yeah we'll get it right away [Music] with this if someone would have picked this up the first time around yeah we went and wasted this time the second time around not to tell you how to do your business [Music] there is something deeper i like it i like that you like it yes there were several fines on the surface and exactly in this area found several on the surface and big ones ow this must be a good sign the flies don't want me to get it first blood it's salmon in russia and the vampire flies are thirsty [Music] oh you think it's even deeper it is it's definitely deep [Music] the farther the guys excavate the less likely it is to be broken farm equipment we might have our first one well it's nice big and metal although it's not really solid metal oh yeah wow spring off to some tractor apparently the field area was plowed farmland so we're out here and we start finding meaty wrongs and meteorons it just was non-stop we're finding a lot of meteorologists what is this a bolt yeah this happens oh i like this sound and this number it's 57 it's much better than that higher is better which could mean a larger target i hope i love the way you never commit to anything it's just it could be it's possible it might be better a few hundred feet from steve at the other end of the stream field jeff and sergey are focusing on a new target the beacon of buried space treasure or just another meteor wrong where is it here no hole so this is something new all right let's dig it oh here is it wow so the count so far is four media wrongs no meteorites some pretty big pieces of heavy metal out here at least none of them were deeply buried which is good because we didn't have to spend half an hour digging them up for jeff the very idea of unearthing an attack site is enough to keep his spirits up tax sights are extremely rare and there are only a handful of spots in the entire world where you'd have even a minuscule chance of finding one scientists believe that attack sites like those found at dranino were created by heat in space perhaps when the space rock passed closely by the sun this additional bavit changed the rock's chemical structure and this is why they're different from other iron meteorites the key difference is the abundance of nickel that you find within them 16 or more the average in other iron meteorites being around 6 our best chance anywhere on the planet of finding an attack site is here at dronino [Music] ah i see it's on the surface oh yeah oh i see [Laughter] [Music] a monument to our discovery yeah [Music] we claim this land in the name of sergey and jeff [Music] the abundance of junk littering the terrain means it's time to change tactics this area because it has a lot of trees in it has not been very well searched ah that's a nice it's a handle a handle a handle from even not know what handle is this must be some something yes [Music] this shows that the tool is working yeah i always think the same thing you dig up trash and you go at least the detector is working yeah i get 28 for zero between the four of us today not counting surface pieces that's 28 digs that's really a business what wait wait wait this might count us too we get disappointed twice in the same hall 8. what is this nobody knows what is this no it's a brick nice going steve what you found a brick no yeah they found a brick on top of our target frustrated with their fines so far the guys decide to bake for lunch and replan the strategy of the mission they head into kazumov and after a couple of shots of george and brandy start to see the stream field more clearly so if i remember correctly the first meteorite was found in 2000 by a man who was looking for mushrooms and this is a famous mushroom district in russia correct i read that the meteorites are typically found between 20 centimeters and two meters is that correct certainly it is yes so quite quite deep what what is the range in size typically from the smallest to the largest pieces that you found biggest one was something about 250 cubes and the smallest one is like this it was curious to see what you thought about this little stringfield map you may have seen this article already very interesting this one i think it's the first find how much has been found historically with you and others something about three tunes three times yes i had no idea that much had been found yeah yeah there were pieces of more than 200 kilos so far and we are not only one team there so at least three or maybe four teams okay but you're the best team there sure i like his confidence isn't that good and the soil is it is it rocky is it germs mostly yes okay and if if something really big was found is how how do you get it out of the ground because some muscles okay yes but i've heard you guys say things like this before oh it's easy it's easy it's only granite you know your your easy is extremely difficult for ordinary people uh i i think you um make a mistake hey and um what about the tigers uh anything this time of year yeah maybe maybe bears no no no bears but maybe tigers yes siberia types great if no we'll bring the most dead i think it's a hedgehog okay maybe a last toast uh before we're going i am eager to get going but i do definitely think we should have another toast none for the driver alas yes gentlemen i wish you good hunting all right that's yours let's go i'm already set skills about time with a new plan in place the meteorite men head back out into the stroom field jeff is quick to get to work and maps out the location of the current finds on his tablet computer there are two streams kind of marshy stream beds in a v pattern here and here and the whole space in between that triangle is this birch forest interestingly enough the very first dronino piece ever found was just a little bit over that way [Music] what number are you getting 58. it's good [Music] yeah and it it is not on the surface for sure hey steve come over here we got a signal we found this target it sounds pretty good let me check wow [Music] sounds good sounds good no i think no who is next we are fine i like this relay digging it's quite good we just got to go around in a circle and everyone goes for ten minutes or five minutes in your case you're gonna dig down this one steve maybe okay i feel it here is it here the dark one another that one that one yes i i saw it already yeah oh yeah that sounds like iron the sound of metal on metal in a hole this deep is almost certainly not man-made trash almost certainly wow i see this here real meteorite [Applause] so we're very close to the fine side of the original piece yes this area has not been heavily searched and it's it's sand it's easy to dig in so it's it it sounds like a pretty good like a pretty good place to start tomorrow i'd say yeah and finally we proved it yeah that is outer space right there found at almost two meters and weighing in at five kilos this piece of space could be worth up to five thousand congratulations all right that is outer space right there having made the five kilo find in the forest the guys again each pair up with a russian hunter and start to blanket the wooded area i want to check this place something is there [Music] ah there's some of the sand [Music] sergey was pulling the big coil down here got a decent signal not super loud but clear and then we checked it with the 18-inch coil didn't hear a thing so that means it's deep the big coil sees deeper into the ground we're down into the clay layer here and it's really hard to get really slow going you got to put all your strength into just breaking up this clay this is about the deepest we've dug so far on this expedition this is getting pretty exciting the deeper we go the more the likelihood that we've gone below the level that contains any man-made trash at last the sound of metal striking metal hold on i got my laser pointer let's have a look down there that's what we got i think you have a magnet yeah um where's my rock camera it is here thank you sir oh it's definitely sticking yeah yeah to whatever whatever that is i think this is immediate do you i think you might be right after two hours of spade work jeff is confident he has a target that does not look very man-made to me you're so ready really yes let's take some more the target is encased in thick heavy clay anchoring it to the earth i think it's going to take us a while to get this out sergey i radioed the boys they're coming over if you want to take a break let them do some digging really i want to make surprise but okay i will not be in time you better hurry up then hello lads hello we got ourselves a deep hole with a meteorite at the bottom here we go oh [Laughter] all right not big [Music] [Laughter] that was a lot of work but it was so worth it just to prove that this is iron bearing huh oh yeah yeah that's what we want to see no meteorite hunter would have failed to dig that target it was a really sharp clear signal and the fact that it's buried means nobody's looked at it before what does that tell us we're in unsearched ground i'm gonna take an in-situ photo for our supply project and i'm gonna go find my own let's go congratulations you set the bar really low it'll be it should be if i find one it should be bigger set the bar really low where's your meteorite just look at how deep the hole is okay for that pieces of the dranino meteorite are strewn across a relatively small area approximately one mile by half a mile since 2003 scientific expeditions have collected more than 600 fragments totaling about 300 kilograms typically when a meteorite falls to earth it falls along an elliptical pattern with smaller rocks falling earlier and larger rocks with greater inertia thrown farther but that is not the case at trinino strangely here small and large stones are found close together dima's theory is that this could have been a crater here where a big rock comes in it hits the ground it explodes shatters in hundreds possibly thousands of pieces and those are spread out over a little area it's kind of splashed out of the crater area while this could explain why smaller and larger dranino samples have been found at the same location a crater has never been found scientists and hunters continue to ponder this puzzle tells steve and jeff that earlier this year hunters unearthed a collection of smaller meteorites very close to their base camp so dima is talking about finding 16 kilo rocks around here which had a buck a gram that's that's ten thousand dollar rock so this that's worth it [Music] let's try here why not what is swamp [Music] time to check okay right here on this surface ah yeah i see this is this is the bottom of the old port of an old pot yes a metal pot yeah nice all right wait it's good okay [Music] that's interesting looks like something small on this surface but the signal is too wide let's try here okay ah here here is here is just the second part of the port here oh but it's it's [Music] something something again [Music] possibly what is it yeah yeah just a solid just a solid iron you have to find a lot of them before the first normal target okay meanwhile at the opposite end of the stream field almost a kilometer away jeff is hitting his own minefield of heavy metal ah i have no idea what that is oh it's a flying cluster of course that's how the meteorites get here you can see here where a meteorite's been found in the past these are weathered fragments we call them shale shale is created by the weathering of the exterior of a meteorite when iron rocks from outer space fall to earth our humid atmosphere causes them to slowly decompose and develop a rusty crust they become almost unrecognizable shale is often the first indicator that a meteorite has landed in a specific area but it proves that meteorites have been found in this area because the dig holes all over the place and the meteorite definitely came out of this hole there's no doubt about that you can see all these little weathered fragments lying around oh well shame you weren't here a few years ago probably was a nice piece it's probably quite close to the surface so we missed the boat on that one [Music] with only one hour till sunset the guys are forced to call it a day and head back to camp what are we going to do are you staying with us tonight yeah camping yeah what do you think [Music] what do you think well i think it could be fun i'll tell you what's going to happen there's going to be a big bonfire there's going to be lots and lots of vodka drinking and partying and people jumping in the pond over there and then at about 2 a.m when you're tired and you want to go to sleep they're going to say and now the georgian brandy there are not many luxuries that i ask for or expect but i do like to have a shower in the morning here it is also possible you have the shower is that one of those showers in a bag you hold from the tree oh no no we have we have one with a little car battery yeah really that's impressive yeah they're not they're not savages i know these guys i know how they party i did not need to go and stay at their camp which i like to call camp vodka thanks for driving me back to town i appreciate it do you think it'll be right to leave steve here on his own well good luck steve if i travel around the world i want to find meteorites i'm not here to lollygag around and wade in the river and have a leisurely breakfast it's all about finding the rocks i can go camp two miles from my house if i want to and have stunning visitors and hear the birds and all that [Music] hello jeff hello hello how are you i'm good to go let's hit the road steve steve yang good morning good morning good morning oh you look in a fine state well thank you how did it go last night good and uh drinking and jumping in the river and did they produce the and brandy at 2 a.m or 3 a.m yes come on we got stuff to do all right the russian style of hunting is not what the guys are used to they don't start necessarily at sunrise they quit before sunset they start drinking a little bit early in the morning to them it it doesn't really matter i guess that's just the way they do it here with my knees jeff is headed back out to hunt with russian partner dima hopefully to recover more than broken farm equipment wait a second [Music] is not too wide let's try it sounded close to the surface yeah it's close to the surface it's small but anyway it's not on the surface what is this ah that's a nice piece of junk another meteor wrong okay such an interesting build yeah what did i just bring you good luck oh [Music] to me to me [Music] oh it's white it's wide not bad right here so there's still a little bit of time left hopefully i'll be able to find one on my own before i have to go home [Music] you have any uh instructions for this one yes yes what you're doing now oh hey but i'm your guest and it would be so rude for me to deprive you of the pleasure oh we're digging and he wants to see how an american digs a hole all right fine he's tired already i shouldn't say that when he's shoveling it will shovel it all over me oh thanks thanks very much oh there we go [Laughter] oh i'm sorry did i put dirt in your hole in my hole now it's my hole look these are my good army pens kind of like building a sand castle [Applause] going down oh here is i think i found something in my hole [Music] rock the casbah look at that i thought you said it was gonna be small it's small it's not that small i don't know oh that's fantastic he's got such finely tuned ears we're walking along the coil in between us and it just goes and he goes that sounds good i mean it sounded like a cricket chirp i would say ladies and gentlemen that passes the magnet test it's a meteorite when he said very small i thought he meant like 10 grams let's see if we can weigh it 367. it was a fist-sized piece beautiful shade almost diamond shaped it was great timing because steve was nearby and ended up doing about 30 seconds of digging and boom hit the meteorite right away after after we'd already excavated most of it but i think it made his day because he got to pull the piece out and [Music] to their russian hosts thank you for everything i never for joining oh our pleasure and return home with their precious space cargo back in the u.s the guys want to know more about their russian hall so they visit dr lawrence garvey at arizona state university so joinino is it i hear you've been collecting some samples we have we were quite successful actually one of the funny things about this meteorite there isn't another one like it it stands by itself in its chemistry and its structure fantastic this unique chemical structure most likely means the dranino meteorite came from a different planetary body than other iron meteorites that have been recovered on earth meteorites are approximately four and a half billion years old they represent the debris left over after the formation of the planets and as messengers across space and time they carry a unique history of our solar system you can really learn a lot about these meteorites in the lab the challenge is to then transfer it back 4.5 billion years and say okay what are you telling us scientists are still unraveling what happened in those 4.5 billion years that made the chemical composition of attack sites differ from other iron meteorite types of the 50 or so known attack sites the dronino itself is an especially interesting example this is an unusual iron it's called an ungrouped iron and we say that because it doesn't fit into the 14 groups that we or have already established for iron meteorites and of all the gernino's ever recovered apparently jeff and steve found a particularly unique one it features inclusions remnants of other minerals trapped in the iron oh it's fabulous and look at this inclusion it's quite amazing you don't this is very unusual i know no other iron meteorites where i see these sort of inclusions the dranino meteorite features sulfide inclusions softer than the other alloys present in the rock any sulfide on the surface would have melted off as the meteorite passed through the atmosphere however microscopic analysis of the interior of the zone reveals inclusions that are rounded and elongated what it's probably telling us is that at some point it must have cooled very rapidly these space rocks help to provide astronomers with new clues to the various different forces that can shape the planets [Music] there were multiple things that made this really unique the russians are as nice of guys as there are in the world we work together because they they had the fine ear to be able to hear yeah let's dig it or no let's not and that saved us a lot of time and it allowed us to move on and get to the targets there were we found several meteorites we had a blast while steve may have had fun for jeff the russian expedition has been one of the most rewarding of his career i got to achieve a big one in meteorite hunting find an attack site that's not something you can do in many places on this planet all right [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] you
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Channel: Geoff Notkin
Views: 38,178
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: Meteorites, Meteorite Men, Geoff Notkin, asteroids, Geoffrey Notkin, Russia, ataxite, Red Square, Moscow Planetarium, Steve Arnold, space, metal detecting, meteorite, NASA
Id: HuXi-DNMDq8
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 48min 35sec (2915 seconds)
Published: Mon Jan 25 2021
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