Meteorite Man Geoff Notkin and his friend Adam Aaronson of Sahara Overland show off a beautiful Moroccan iron meteorite.// Credit: David J. Eicher
As someone who is interested in rocks from space, one of the great pleasures of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show is to visit the Aerolite Meteorites room at the Hotel Tucson City Center (formerly the InnSuites). Each year, Geoff Notkin has a wide range of really interesting and incredible specimens, from rare historic pieces to entry-level common stones to exotic pieces from the Moon and Mars. You probably know of Geoff as one half of the
Meteorite Men, along with his partner Steve Arnold, from the Discovery Channel TV show of recent years. Geoff has also filmed a number of STEM Journals TV shows in Arizona, and his activities as a meteorite hunter and collector are legendary.
This year was no disappointment. Entry-level collectors could buy a kit containing three small fragments of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, the famous fall from early 2013 in Russia, along with a genuine piece of shattered glass from the town that resulted from the explosion.
More sophisticated collectors could see a wide range of amazingly imprinted Sikhote-Alin irons, with stunning regmaglypts, or any one of dozens of special stones and irons from the distant and recent past.
And a range of true rarities inhabited the room, martian meteorites as well as pieces of Moon rock.
There is really nothing quite like holding a piece of another world in your hand!
You can see Geoff’s meteorite website
here.
For all images from the trip, visit the
Online Reader Gallery.
For related blogs, see:
Visiting historic Lowell Observatory
A visit to the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology branch in Flagstaff A visit to the U.S. Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station
Meteorites at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show
Follow Dave Eicher on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/deicherstar