Meteorite Times Magazine California’s Recent Meteorite Fall by Jim Tobin I named this article as I did to avoid the problem of picking a name myself when it has not been officially named as of the time of this writing. My story of the meteorite fall near Coloma, California began with my wife asking if I had seen the video of the beautiful fireball that came over Nevada and California. I had not seen it, so the Internet search for information began. The size and explosion strength were soon to be estimated. NASA said quickly that it had been the size of a mini van and had exploded with 3-4 kilotons of force. There was still discussion about where any pieces might have landed. Well, this was my chance to go hunt a fall right away. I had no commitments for a while and the free time to go. But, I wanted to wait until the location was determined and whether there were even pieces on the ground to find. I did not have to wait long after a couple days the first several pieces had been found and I got on the computer to determine just exactly where Coloma was. That is when the first big decision was forced upon me. Coloma was just a short loop up and over Folsom Lake from Rocklin. What does Rocklin 30 miles away have to do with the meteorite fall? My middle daughter was to graduate from William Jessup University in Rocklin on May 12. Three months before the meteorite fell we made hotel reservations and plans to go up there. Now my decision is do I go up early for a few days and find a place near Coloma to stay. Return home, then turn around and go up again with my wife. When the pieces began being found and they were all small and they were being found very slowly it made more sense to wait just a few days and go up as we had planned. We had two free days built into the trip with no activities planned. So meteorite hunting and a nice visit to gold country was going to be great. We drove straight to Coloma from LA and got there around noon. You have to start out early or you get caught in morning traffic. I had picked a road west of Coloma; but not too far to try my luck at hunting for pieces that may have flown farther. As it turned out there was not a lot of room next to the sides of the road. But, we found some spots and turnouts and hunted there for a couple hours diligently.
Then we drove toward Coloma and pulled into Henningsen Lotus Park and hunted there for a couple more hours. No meteorites, but as a long time hunter it is part of the process to put in the time without success so you can scream and howl for a few minutes when you do find one. I did find a couple nice pieces of colored native rock that were beautiful. May do something with them someday. In the late afternoon we