MAMMOTH TO METEORITES; AUCTION OFFERS RARE WONDERS OF NATURE.Byline: Leilani Albano Daily News Staff Writer In a unique auction in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. and San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden on Sunday, people paid tens of thousands of dollars for specimens from a rare collection of meteorites Meteorites See also astronomy. aerolithology the science of aerolites, whether meteoric stones or meteorites. Also called aerolitics. astrolithology the study of meteorites. Also called meteoritics. and fossils. Buyers packed the bidding room of the Butterfield & Butterfield Fine Arts Auctioneers and Appraisers in Hollywood, which was holding its first natural history auction. The rare assemblage included a nearly complete woolly mammoth skeleton found in a Wisconsin cornfield, as well as a 100 million-year-old dinosaur egg with an exposed unborn dinosaur skeleton. The meteorites were among the main attractions, including one from Mars and remnants of one found in Los Angeles County. Buyers were on hand with the displays in Los Angeles and San Francisco via satellite. ``This isn't something you see everyday,'' said meteorite meteorite, meteor that survives the intense heat of atmospheric friction and reaches the earth's surface. Because of the destructive effects of this friction, only the very largest meteors become meteorites. enthusiast Mark Kline of Sherman Oaks. ``Meteors have captured the imagination of the public,'' said Darryl Pitt, a meteorite specialist who has seen a growing fascination with meteorites within the past five years. ``They're interesting to science because they give us clues to how the solar system solar system, the sun and the surrounding planets, natural satellites, dwarf planets, asteroids, meteoroids, and comets that are bound by its gravity. The sun is by far the most massive part of the solar system, containing almost 99.9% of the system's total mass. was formed.'' Actual remnants of a Neenach meteorite, the only one known to fall on the Los Angeles area, as well as a 995-pound Gibeon meteorite were among some of the exhibits made available to bidders. A thin sheet of the gem-bearing Esquel meteorite sold for as much as $40,000 to an absentee bidder from New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . A larger piece of the meteorite was bought for $130,000. ``(Meteorite collections) are an up and coming trend,'' said Ron Frithiof, who flew in from Austin, Texas, for the occasion. For the seasoned collector, the auction was an opportunity to cash in on meteorites' rising demand, ``I like to pick into a market and watch it go up.'' But for others, like Kline, getting to see and touch meteorites was one step closer to the extraterrestrial. CAPTION(S): 2 Photos PHOTO (1) Lynne Burnett and her daughter Danielle, 11 months, admire a wooly wool·y adj. & n. Variant of woolly. Adj. 1. wooly - having a fluffy character or appearance flocculent, woolly soft - yielding readily to pressure or weight 2. mammoth skeleton on display Sunday at a Hollywood auction. (2) Potential bidders look over some meteorites Sunday at the Butterfield & Butterfield natural history auction in Hollywood. Terri Thuente/Daily News |
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