Harvey Nininger was eating a hamburger at a lunch counter in Sterling, Colorado, where he had placed a small stony meteorite beside his drink glass. A cattle truck driver sat at the counter beside Nininger and noticed the stone. After examining it he noted, "You know, my brother-in-law over in Nebraska may have one of these things in his yard. It's a big thing. He bumped into it when he was plowing several years ago in the field where there were no other rocks. He brought it up to the house and it's been lying in the yard ever since." First suspicious, Nininger gave one of his now-famous booklets to the driver to help him recognize meteorites, and he later received many fragments of the Potter meteorite fall from the finder.
More about the find and it's circumstances : After being struck by a plow a large number of meteorite fragments were recovered. Lying close together on a hillside, it is not possible to separate possible fragmentation upon impact from the influence of terrestrial weathering. Inspections reveal indistinct chondrules within a largely equilibrated, but brecciated grayish matrix. Prominent veins, especially, appear to be products of both preterrestrial shocks and subsequent terrestrial weathering. Compositionally, equilibrated olivine (Fa23) and low Ca-orthopyroxene ('hypersthene') are characteristic of the L-chondrite geochemical group. Mineralogically, the meteorite consists primarily of dominant olivine accompanied by pyroxene along with minor troilite and Fe-Ni metal. Much of the kamacite has been altered or removed by weathering. Accessory chromite and ilmenite have also been reported.
The main mass is at the at Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Another large mass is also found at ASU's Center for Meteorite Studies in Tempe (45.179 kg in 2017). The Bushnell (H4, 1939 find) and Dix (L6, 1927 find) were also found in nearby counties largely in response to the recovery efforts of Harvey H. Nininger during those years.
Glen Huss later purchased the remainder of the meteorite shortly after the Owasca and Oliver meteorites appeared.
Refer to the photos. The black centimeter cube is shown for scale and is not included. You are purchasing a small fragment like the one shown. Your purchase will include a labeled gemjar for safe storage.
