The fourth Arizona desert cold find by Todd Parker, an exceptional meteorite hunter from the same state. Countless distinct chondrules are visibly breaching the surface of this beautiful main mass, but the most fascinating thing about this meteorite to me is how Parker went about finding it.

A few years ago, Parker became a bit disenchanted over the treasure hunting dynamic at the Franconia and Gold Basin strewn fields. So he just headed out into the Arizona deserts -- and has already made five fantastic finds. The notion of a "cold find" was first applied to the meteorite arena by Adam Hupe, and it is indeed fitting. Many cold finds, however, are made while searching known strewn fields containing a different meteorite. A more appropriate description of Parker's finds would be "ice cold finds." He has spent countless hundreds of hours hunting in the wide open desert, with miniscule chances of finding anything at all. Parker enjoys the hunt in its purest sense, and he couldn't care less about the monetary value of what he finds. Oh, and he's very, very good at it ;-)

Incidentally, why this meteorite was assigned a "002" number, I'll never understand. First of all, this was the first meteorite Parker found in what has evidently been deemed a "dense collection area." Secondly, it's unclear how two or three meteorites constitutes "dense," but it's moot at this point and takes nothing away from the incredible work Parker has done in the deserts of Arizona.