In geologic time, patience is a necessity. And that's all it takes to get Morgan back in his car for a road trip. When he is able to buy and sell in the booming Internet trade for privately owned space rocks, Morgan has a rare piece in reserve to sweeten his deals. Years ago he acquired part of a Mars rock, blasted off the surface of the Red Planet in a collision and landing eventually in Nigeria. Profits get plowed into plowing up more meteorites .
Geologists can go lifetimes without finding any on their own.
Morgan has found three in a productive area of Arizona hit by a 1912 stone-fall. He scrapes money together to go back to Arizona or to visit a meteor-impact site near Area 51 in remote Nevada, where he works with Colorado School of Mines professor John Warme studying the crater blasted into an ancient coral reef. But he has covered only a few hundred square feet, and even better prospects beckon in the distance, where Bear Creek has proven to be a bonanza. It gets tiring. But you wear a Walkman.