[meteorite-list] Scientists Find New 154-Pound Pallasite Meteoritein Kansas Field

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Oct 16 23:01:09 2006
Message-ID: <007001c6f198$7a506550$4a5ce146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, All

    Same AP story everywhere, but here's a photo of the find:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15294779/displaymode/1176/rstry/15294523/
    and another photo of it being unearthed:
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=526166&category=&BCCode=&newsdate=10/16/2006


Sterling K. Webb
--------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Baalke" <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 6:09 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Scientists Find New 154-Pound Pallasite
Meteoritein Kansas Field


>
> http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/state/15774409.htm
>
> Scientists find unusual meteorite in Kansas field
> ROXANA HEGEMAN
> Associated Press
> October 16, 2006
>
> GREENSBURG, Kan. - Scientists located a rare meteorite in a Kansas wheat
> field thanks to new ground penetrating radar technology that some day
> might be used on Mars.
>
> The dig Monday was likely the most documented excavation yet of a
> meteorite find, with researchers painstakingly using brushes and hand
> tools in order to preserve evidence of the impact trail and to date the
> event of the meteorite strike. Soil samples were also bagged and tagged,
> and organic material preserved for dating purposes.
>
> Even before they had the meteorite out of the ground, the scientific
> experts at the site were able to debunk prevailing wisdom that the
> spectacular Brenham meteorite fall occurred 20,000 years ago. Its
> location in the Pleistocene epoch soil layer puts that date closer to
> 10,000 years ago.
>
> "We know it is recent," said Carolyn Sumners, director of Astronomy at
> the Houston Museum of Natural Science, as she surveyed progress on the
> dig. "Native Americans could have seen it."
>
> The scientific expedition of the meteorite strewn field in western
> Kansas was put together by the Houston Museum of Natural Science and led
> by meteorite hunters Steve Arnold and Philip Mani. Johnson Space
> Center's Lunar and Planetary Institute, the Rice Space Institute at Rice
> University and George Observatory in Houston also sent researchers.
>
> Fewer than 1 percent of the meteorites discovered on earth are pallasite
> meteorites, known for their crystals embedded in iron, Mani said.
>
> Sophisticated metal detectors at the site initially detected what had
> been thought to be the largest pallasite meteorite ever discovered. But
> ground penetrating radar showed that object to be a steel cable.
>
> But with about a dozen potential targets on the site, the team still
> uncovered a sizeable pallasite buried four feet under the ground and
> located a quarter of a mile from where Arnold and Mani found the world's
> largest pallasite meteorite a year ago.
>
> The newest find weighs 154 lbs and measures 18 by 12 by 12, which is
> bigger than most such meteorites but on par for this particular field,
> Arnold said.
>
> "What is unique is not the size, but the fact it was found in context,"
> said Patricia Reiff, director of the Rice Space Institute.
>
> Researchers documented every aspect of the dig from various scientific
> disciplines. Among them were an archaeologist, a paleontologist, a
> naturalist, geologists, astronomers, and even an animator, who recreated
> the meteor fall for the museum.
>
> But few garnered as much attention as Essam Heggy, planetary scientist
> at the Johnson Space Center's Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.
> It was his ground penetrating technology that pinpointed the site and
> proved for the first time that the technology could be used to find
> objects buried deep in the ground and to make an accurate
> three-dimensional image of them.
>
> "It validates the technique so we can use something similar to that
> instrument when we go to Mars," Reiff said.
>
> Such GPR systems had been used in the past to locate smaller meteorites
> in Antarctica where ice allows easier penetration of the sonar. But
> until the Kansas dig, the technology had not been successfully used for
> ground detection in heavy soils, like what might be encountered in Mars,
> to find meteorites or water there.
>
> "When we find a piece of meteorite, each one is a new sentence we add to
> the book to understand the evolution of the solar system," Heggy said.
>
> The Brenham field was discovered in 1882. Scientists have since traced
> pieces of the shower as far away as Indian mounds in Ohio, indicating
> the meteorites were traded as pieces of jewelry and ceremonial
> artifacts. The site was largely forgotten in recent decades until Arnold
> and Mani leased eight square miles of it and began looking deep below
> the surface.
>
> More than 15,000 pounds of meteorites have been recovered from the
> Brenham fall, with about a third of them found by the two men in the
> past year, Mani said. About three dozen meteorites have been pulled from
> the field by their Brenham Meteorite Co.
>
> This week's find will end up as part of a new exhibit on comets,
> meteors, and asteroids at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The
> museum will pay about $50,000 for it, Sumners said. It is valued at more
> than $100,000, she said.
>
> Under the lease agreement, the landowner and meteorite hunters split the
> proceeds of any finds, Mani said.
>
> Landowner Alan Binford watched with interest as the scientists freed the
> meteorite, bagging clumps of his rich Kansas farmland around it.
>
> "I didn't figure there would be that much scientific value," he said. "I
> never thought about them going to this extent. It is interesting history."
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Received on Mon 16 Oct 2006 11:01:00 PM PDT