Meteorite Men
Meteorite Men | |
---|---|
Meteorite hunters Steve Arnold and Geoff Notkin. | |
Genre | Documentary / Reality |
Presented by | Steve Arnold, Geoff Notkin |
Starring | Steve Arnold, Geoff Notkin |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 3 |
No. of episodes | 23 (including pilot) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Eric Schotz |
Producer(s) | Sonya Gay Bourn, Ruth Rivin, Kathy Williamson, Bob Melisso, James Rowley |
Location(s) | American Southwest, American Midwest, Texas, Canada, Chile, Sweden, Australia |
Camera setup | Randall Love, German Abarca, Tim Murphy, Dave Marlin |
Running time | 45-48 minutes |
Release | |
Original network | Science Channel |
Original release | May 10, 2009 – January 23, 2012 |
External links | |
Website |
Meteorite Men is a documentary reality television series featuring two meteorite hunters. The pilot episode premiered on May 10, 2009. The full first season began on January 20, 2010 on the Science Channel. The second season premiered November 2, 2010 and season three began November 28, 2011. **Discovery networks have cancelled Meteorite Men - no further episodes have been filmed or are in the works.**
Summary
Steve Arnold and Geoffrey Notkin are the Meteorite Men. They both visit areas around the world where meteorites have impacted with the Earth's surface. Steve is primarily a businessman, [1]while Geoff is a passionate collector and science writer. [2]Some of the specimens found on the show are sold to collectors, and some are donated to university collections. Professors and scientists at prominent universities including UCLA; ASU, Tempe; UA, Edmonton; and other institutions, such as NASA's Johnson Space Center, are featured. Meteorite Men has won two bronze Telly Awards. The show has also spawned a modern-day "gold rush" as thousands of amateur meteorite hunters now scour the globe each year in search of meteorites that can be resold.[3]
Episodes
Season 1
# | Title | Original air date |
---|---|---|
1 | "The Buzzard Coulee Fireball and Whitecourt Crater, Canada" | January 20, 2010 |
The Meteorite Men head up to Alberta, Canada to search for meteorites around Whitecourt Crater after the Buzzard Coulee Fireball. | ||
2 | "Odessa Meteorite Crater, Texas" | January 27, 2010 |
The Meteorite Men search for pieces of a 63,000-year-old impact near Odessa, Texas with new detectors. | ||
3 | "Tucson Ring Mystery, Southern Arizona" | February 3, 2010 |
The Meteorite Men hunt for pieces of the elusive Tucson Ring in Southern Arizona. | ||
4 | "The Gold Basin, Arizona" | February 10, 2010 |
The Meteorite Men follow the work of Professor Jim Kriegh into a strewn field in Arizona inside National Park boundaries. After the hunt, Geoff and Steve take their samples Dr. Laurence Garvie at Arizona State University for further study. | ||
5 | "The Dry Lake Bed, Nevada" | February 17, 2010 |
The Meteorite Men hunt around dry lake beds in the Great Basin of Nevada. | ||
6 | "Ash Creek Fall, Texas" | February 14, 2010 |
Steve and Geoff explore Homestead, Iowa, where numerous large meteorites fell in 1875. |
Season 2
# | Title | Original air date |
---|---|---|
1 | "Alpha Site, Kansas" | November 2, 2010 |
Geoff and Steve return to their top-secret location in eastern Kansas where a rare pallasite meteorite contains extraordinary gem-quality olivine crystals. | ||
2 | "Imilac, Chile" | November 9, 2010 |
Located in Chile's Atacama Desert, the Imilac strewn field was the first place Geoff Notkin and Steve Arnold hunted together, some 13 years ago. With almost 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms) of meteorites found, Imilac is the site of the third-largest pallasite ever recovered and one of the few areas in the world littered with space rocks. Vaca Muerta, Chile -- Translated as "Dead Cow" in English, the Vaca Muerta strewn field is located near the small town of Taltal in the Atacama Desert. This area contains the rarest of all meteorites, the mesosiderite. | ||
3 | "Monturaqui, Chile" | November 16, 2010 |
This 1,509-foot-diameter (460-meter-diameter) crater is one of the best-preserved meteorite craters on the planet. Measuring 34 meters (112 feet) deep, the Monturaqui crater is often compared with the Bonneville crater on Mars. In the vast and arid Atacama Desert, San Juan is a newly discovered meteorite gold mine, where numerous different meteorites have been recovered, including the coveted carbonaceous chondrite. | ||
4 | "Dugway , Utah" | November 23, 2010 |
On Nov 18, 2009, a fireball streaked across the midnight sky over western Utah. Using NEXRAD Doppler weather radar images and eyewitness testimony, the Meteorite Men track the strewn field down to Dugway Military Base. Military officials grant Geoff and Steve exclusive access to the base's dangerous ammunitions-testing grounds to search for remnants of the majestic fireball. | ||
5 | "Mifflin, Wisconsin" | November 30, 2010 |
On April 14, 2010, a fireball lit up the night sky. The sonic boom was heard for miles. As it was perhaps the most publicized meteorite fall in history, swarms of meteorite hunters flooded the scene in hopes of securing a piece of this famed fireball. | ||
6 | "Muonionalusta, Sweden" | December 7, 2010 |
With a terrestrial age estimated at more than 800,000 years old, the Muonionalusta meteorites have endured thousands of years' worth of glaciations and melting periods. As a result, thawing ice sheets have migrated the meteorites miles from their original impact site, making Muonionalusta among the largest and most challenging strewn fields on the planet. | ||
7 | "Henbury, Australia" | December 14, 2010 |
The Henbury meteorite strewn field consists of 12 craters that stretch across central Australia's outback. This engraved record of an ancient meteorite shower 4,700 years ago served as the inspiration for Aboriginal folklore and a shadow of dark superstition. | ||
8 | "Mundrabilla, Australia" | December 21, 2010 |
Located in the desolate and dangerous Nullarbor Plains, the Mundrabilla iron meteorites are known for their zoomorphic shapes. Roughly 700,000 years ago, the massive meteoroid showered along a strewn field more than 80 kilometers (50 mi) long. The largest masses, which tipped the scales at 16 tons and 6 tons, were recovered in 1966. |
Season 3
# | Title | Original air date |
---|---|---|
1 | "Morasko, Poland" | November 28, 2011 |
Poland was hit with a meteorite 5,000 years ago which resulted in a scarred landscape and seven craters. Geoff and Steve receive exclusive access to investigate the Morasko crater field for the first time. | ||
2 | "Return to Sweden" | December 5, 2011 |
Geoff and Steve venture north of the Arctic Circle on a quest for ancient buried space rocks near the site of the Muonionalusta site they visited in 2010. | ||
3 | "Return to Whitecourt" | December 12, 2011 |
The hosts return to Canada to retrieve materials from the Whitecourt crater before poachers can compromise the site. | ||
4 | "Dronino" | December 19, 2011 |
Geoff and Steve make the journey to Russia in search of one of the most rare and valuable meteorites on the planet-the Dronino ataxite. | ||
5 | "Mojave" | December 26, 2011 |
Geoff and Steve for meteorites at two locations in the Mojave Desert. | ||
6 | "Sahuarita" | January 9, 2012 |
The guys go to Arizona in search of an unclassified meteorite. | ||
7 | "Homestead" | January 16, 2012 |
Steve and Geoff explore the strewnfield in Homestead, Iowa, where numerous large meteorites fell in 1875. | ||
8 | "Pultusk" | January 23, 2012 |
In the season finale Geoff and Steve return to Poland where, along with their friend Marcin, they investigate the Pultusk meteorite fall from 1868. |
External links
- Official website of the Meteorite Men
- Official Meteorite Men Facebook page
- Head Rush: Cool Jobs in Science featuring the Meteorite Men
- Talking Space interview with the Meteorite Men
- Almost Rocket Science podcast interview with the Meteorite Men
- Meteorite science blog by Geoff of Meteorite Men
- Meteorite Men at the Internet Movie Database
References
- ↑ Riccardi, Nicholas (27 October 2007). "Chicken Little was right". L.A. Times. Retrieved 17 November 2016.
- ↑ Vastag, Brian (19 December 2011). "One of TV's 'Meteorite Men' describes team's hunt for treasure from outer spaceOne of TV's 'Meteorite Men' describes team's hunt for treasure from outer space". Washington Post. Retrieved 17 November 2016.
- ↑ "How to Become a Meteorite Hunter & Make $5,000- $20,000 Per Rock". The Penny Hoarder. Retrieved May 23, 2012.