Searching for meteorites can be an exciting activity. The anticipation of discovering a valuable find requires preparation in order to receive the greatest reward for the effort.
Keep in mind that you are the first person to discover a new piece of extra terrestrial material and as a finder you must gather as much information as possible. The value of your find will be increased many times by noting the location.
Bring a GPS locater designed for mapping purposes. Every meteorite find needs to be recorded with the exact GPS coordinates in latitude and longitude for future reference. Take a good camera, a magnet-on-a-string, and a field notebook. Write down descriptions of what you find including the number of pieces, position of fragments, magnetic or non-magnetic, and soil type.
If you wish, you may have your find classified providing a sample piece for scientific study. Laboratories need a type specimen archived for future study and a thin section. It can take more than six months for classification. Check lists of institutions working on meteorites at the end of the Meteoritical Bulletin.
The lab will ask for all documentation pertaining to the find such as location, circumstances of find and a photograph, preferably at the ground zero location (in-situ).
There is better than 90 chances in a hundred that your specimen whatever its size comes from a multiple fall, fragmentation in the atmosphere capable of producing many individuals which normally strike the earth in an elliptical pattern. Data that you collect may be responsible for discovery of additional paired specimens or a strewn field. Putting out an effort to record information can lead to increasing the value of your find.
Distribution Ellipse of the Pultusk Meteorite Fall
which occurred on January 30, 1868.
in the town of Pultusk, Poland NE from Warsaw.