Biography for
Geoffrey Notkin More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

1 February 1961, New York City, New York, USA

Height

5' 11" (1.80 m)

Mini Biography

Geoffrey Notkin is a television host, professional meteorite hunter, science writer, and photographer. He was born in New York's East Village, grew up in London, England, and now makes his home in the Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona. He studied geology, photography, writing, and design in London, Boston and New York and is the owner of Aerolite Meteorites LLC of Tucson, a featured exhibitor at the annual Tucson gem and mineral shows.

Geoffrey has written more than one hundred published articles on meteoritics, paleontology, adventure travel, history, and the arts, and his work has appeared in "Astronomy," "Sky & Telescope," "Wired," "Reader's Digest," "The Village Voice," "Seed," "Rock & Gem," "Geotimes," "Meteorite" magazine, "The Field Guide to Meteors and Meteorites," "Meteorite Hunting and Collecting Magazine," "Meteoryt" (Poland), "Mushroom" (Germany), "New York Press," "The New York Sun," "The Arizona Star," "Tucson Weekly" and many other national and international publications. He is also the author of the book "Meteorite Hunting: How To Find Treasure From Space." He writes a science and arts blog, "The Logical Lizard," for TucsonCitizen.com and his column "The Adventurist" is published by IndieReader.com

Geoffrey has worked extensively with most of the world's major meteorite institutions including The Natural History Museum, London; The Institute of Meteoritics at UNM, Albuquerque; The American Museum of Natural History in New York City; The Center for Meteorite Studies at ASU, Tempe; and the Oscar E. Monnig Meteorite Gallery at TCU, Fort Worth. He is a member of the Explorers Club, the International Dark-Sky Association, the International Meteorite Collectors' Association, the Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences, and the Society of Southwestern Authors. He has traveled to over forty countries and some of the world's most remote locations in search of elusive and valuable space rocks, including Chile's Atacama Desert, the Australian Outback, Iceland, England, Canada, Mexico, the Middle East and had crossed the Arctic Circle three times.

Geoffrey appears regularly on television, notably as host of "Meteorite Men" for Science. The third season of"Meteorite Men" premiered in the winter of 2010 and has won two Telly Awards. Geoffrey has also made documentaries for National Geographic, Discovery, PBS, the BBC, The History Channel, A&E, and The Travel Channel.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Beth Carrillo (press agent)

Trivia

"Deaf Geoff," one of the bubblegum cards from the satirical "Garbage Pail Kids" series popular during the 1980s, was based on Geoffrey Notkin.

Geoff's company, Aerolite Meteorites of Tucson, supplied a genuine iron meteorite for use in Hugh Jackman's "X-Men" prequel, the film "Wolverine." Unfortunately, footage of the meteorite did not make it into the final cut. Aerolite Meteorites also supplied an 88-lb iron iron meteorite as a birthday present for former Police front man, rock musician Sting.

As a teenager, Geoffrey Notkin performed regularly as a drummer in the original punk rock movement in London. His first band, Chaos, was co-founded by Geoff and his childhood best friend, famed author and screenwriter Neil Gaiman.

Geoff attended art school in New York City, where he studied cartooning, photography and illustration. He befriended and worked for legendary cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman, founder of "Mad" magazine. Geoff's first job after college was working for Art Spiegelman and his wife Francoise Mouly-Spiegelman. Art went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for his book "Maus," on which Geoff worked as a production assistant.

During the 1980s and '90s Geoff played professionally in a New York City rock band fronted by singer/songwriter Lach. Lach founded New York's Anti-Folk movement which spawned such artists as Beck, Moldy Peaches, and Langhorne Slim.

The minor planet 132904, discovered at Mount Palomar, was named "Notkin" and approved by the Minor Planet Center in recognition of Geoffrey's contributions to science and education.