20/03/2024
Today, we celebrate the magic of storytelling for World Storytelling Day. The adventurous life of a geologist creates a rich source of tales for the camp fire. What better way to mark World Storytelling Day than having our chief story teller and Technical Director Sandy Archibald reminisce about some of his weird and wonderful adventures. One story that is too good not to share with everyone is "Wish Upon a Falling Star"....
In 2010 reports came in from around Ireland regarding a meteor that streaked across the frosty February sky. Could it have made it safely to the ground? The press thought so, and a heavenly goldrush began. The public were told to be on the lookout for a strange shinny rock that probably looked like nothing they had seen before. Later that day we received a call from a local Kells resident who had found a black rock at the side of the road.
“What does it look like?”, I asked.
“It’s black and shiny. I’ve never seen a stone like it”, he replied.
“What about its weight? Do you think it is heavy for its size?”, I added.
“It definitely feels very heavy to me”, the caller replied.
It sounded like it could be a meteorite, so I asked him to bring it to the office that afternoon.
At 2 pm the would-be Indiana Jones arrived at the office with his precious cargo safely wrapped up in a Tesco’s bag and placed in a shoe box. He removed the bag from the box and passed the grapefruit-sized sample to me. The first thing I noticed was how light the sample felt.
“It’s not an iron, stony-iron, or chondritic meteorite based on the weight. It could be a carbonaceous chondrite” I said, as I carefully unwrapped the sample.
The shiny, jet-black rock was exposed to the daylight and my optimism of being part of a front-page news story quickly evaporated. It was a lump of… coal!
“This is a piece of coal. Have you never seen a piece of coal before?”
“Coal? No, never. We always burned turf (peat) when I was growing up, and now we have oil heating”.
Mystery solved. Next time I see a shooting star I will wish for something else.
