LOS ANGELES, Calif. A veteran rock hound recently uncovered two martian meteorites in his backyard, where they had languished for 20 years after being plucked from the Mojave Desert.
The find, announced this week, brings the total number of martian meteorites among the rarest of all rocks to fall from the heavens to 15
"Theyre in beautiful shape, un-weathered," said Alan Rubin, a research geochemist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who verified the find. "Theyre really martian meteorites."
Amateur rock collector Robert Verish found the rocks two decades ago while combing the Mojave. One weighs about half a pound (245 grams); the other a full pound (453 grams).
At the time, he dismissed them as "peculiar volcanic rocks" and banished them to the jumble of other finds piled in milk crates in his backyard.
.Confirmation came on January 12, based on the presence of maskelynite, a shocked mineral. Arizona State University also measured the rocks deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio, which further confirmed they were martian in origin.
"When he initially picked up these rocks, he didnt know they were meteorites," said
, a meteorite expert at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a friend of Verishs. "He was very surprised when UCLA said it was a martian meteorite."Rubin said the two are without doubt pieces of the same meteorite and thus count as a single find. They have since been dubbed the "Los Angeles meteorite."
Verish could not be reached for comment on Tuesday because he was attending a gem and mineral show in Tucson, Arizona, where he was talking to dealers about selling the twin meteorites, Baalke said.
Since they are in such pristine condition, Rubin said they could have fallen as recently as several decades ago in the desert northeast of Los Angeles. That could push up their value as well.
Martian meteorites typically sell for in excess of $1,000 a gram, meaning the rocks are worth far more than their weight in gold.
Not all of the meteorites will land in private hands: In exchange for the analysis work, Verish gave UCLA about 25 grams of the rocks.
"That part will be preserved for science," Rubin said.
The university has since been "inundated" with requests from scientists for samples to study, Rubin said.
Among those requesting samples, he added, was a team at NASAs Johnson Space Center that announced in 1996 they found what they claimed were fossils in ALH 84001 -- a meteorite from Mars discovered in Antarctica in 1984.
Preliminary work on the Los Angeles meteorite indicates the bits of crustal rock are further evolved geochemically than other pieces of Mars found since 1815.
"Its another piece of the puzzle in studying Mars," Baalke said.
The finds will be discussed at the
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