Scientists have embarked on a search for a massive meteor that splashed down into the sea off the Washington coast in March.

On Monday, NASA's curator of cosmic dust, Marc Fries, will lead the hunt in the waters off Grays Harbor County.

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The Seattle Times reports that Fries used weather radar to locate the splashdown zone about 16 miles offshore of the Quinault Indian Nation village of Taholah.

On Monday he'll have the help of the vessel Nautilus operated by the Ocean Exploration Trust, founded by explorer Robert Ballard. The crew agreed to devote a day and their sophisticated equipment.

Fries says he's optimistic about finding meteorites partly because the space rock that exploded in a fireball and sonic boom was huge. He says about 2 tons of rock survived the plunge and scattered over a half-mile of seafloor.