Metal Detectors Super Store

Lorenz Metal Detector Treasure Stories

I grew up in N. E. Louisiana on the family farm. This area was home for Native American’s as far back as 1500 B.C. As we tilled the fields we would unearth all sorts of Indian relics. At an early age I started collecting them. Little did I know this would be training that would later help me in searching for rocks from space.

Generally speaking there are three main types of meteorites. They are stone, iron, and stony iron (pallasite). While all three contain some iron, the palisites and iron have the highest concentrations. To locate them I needed a metal detector. Finding the guys at Kelly Co. was a great day. J.W. helped me chose the correct equipment the first time. He recommended the Deep Max III by Lorenz. The Deep Max III can handle large frame coils (up to 40 feet) for deep detection and covering large areas. The meteorites I was looking for can be as deep as 7 feet and scattered over an area up to six miles long. With the 40 foot coil the Deep Max III allows one to cover as much as 20 acres a day. This greatly increases the chance of locating a meteorite.

Soon after receiving my equipment I headed off to Kansas with high anticipation. After three weeks I had found lots treasure (i.e. junk), but no meteorites. Man, this was hard! Two times my machine gave a clear signal of something metal and very large. With much excitement my # 2 shovel was penetrating the Kansas sod. Hours later my blade struck metal. Eureka! I have found it, a disk pan from a farmers plow buried 4 feet in the hardest dirt known to man. The second one was a flattened steel drum at 4 feet down. Again, man this is tough! I told my friends I was going to find a meteorite, so of course I couldn’t come back without one. The odds are that one meteorite will strike inside one square mile (640 acres) every 20,000 years. So how hard should this be?

The 28 foot universal coil was arranged in a square around the edges of a PVC trailer which I had constructed so it would cover a seven foot square. I needed to cover a larger area on each pass. A quick call to J.W. at Kelly Co. and a 40 foot coil was on its way to Kansas. This coil was mounted on a 2 inch PVC ground slide configured in a rectangle 5 feet deep and 15 feet wide. This ground slide was towed behind a Honda 300 ATV.

The first day with the new rig I located my first palisite meteorite, HALLELUJAH! It was 3 feet deep and weighed 11 pounds. The next morning I found an iron meteorite weighing 9 pounds in a wheat field 30 inches deep. The following day was Sunday so I did not look. On Monday my Mojo really started working. I heard a clear strong signal over my headphones. This was the best signal yet. Can it be another disk pan? This signal was so strong my 35 cm double d search coil (you can change coils easily with a Deep Max III) located the exact place to dig. The # 2 shovel was throwing the Kansas soil in all direction for the first 18 inches or so. The hard pan at this depth was just awful. I could only chip away at it and remove the soil with a post hole digger. At 3 feet, still nothing! Have I dug in the wrong place? A quick check with the Deep Max III confirms I am much closer and directly over it. Chip, chip, thunk!? Metal! But what is it? After a few more minutes of digging I can see the top of it. It is definitely a meteorite, but how big is it? After 4 hours of digging, I pried lose the 49 pound pallasite and lifted it from its resting place for over 7,000 years. It is full of olivine and a beautiful specimen. The special part of this is that I was the first person ever to see this chunk of building material that God had left over from the building of the universe. He put this one and nine others there just so I could find them. What a blessing. Thanks Kelly Co., for helping to make this possible.

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– Murry Crowe (Mojo Outdoors)