[meteorite-list] Search for space rocks comes up empty

From: Michael Groetz <mpg4444_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:03:29 -0400
Message-ID: <ad733151003221703r6996258i36415ffffcdb548c_at_mail.gmail.com>

  I thought the last paragraph (quoted below) seemed interesting-
possibly another meteorite series?
Mike

      "A film crew from the National Geographic Channel filmed
McCausland's work in Grimsby on Friday and Saturday as part of a TV
episode called Space Fireballs, which is part of the National
Geographic Channel's Naked Science series. No air date has been set."

http://www.wellandtribune.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2502218

Search for space rocks comes up empty

Posted By MONIQUE BEECH, QMI AGENCY


An avid metal detector enthusiast, Brenda Found couldn't help but feel
a twinge of envy over her friend's rare find.

Her buddy, Robin, unearthed the ultimate prize last fall: A meteorite
hiding in a Winona baseball diamond.

Since then, the 71-year-old's been looking for her own chunks of
magnet-loving space rock -- pieces of the 4.6-billion-year-old fiery
ball that blasted into the Grimsby and Winona area on Sept. 25.


She thought she'd scored after finding two tiny rocks from the same
Winona park. But scientists told her they were Earth rocks, not the
galaxy variety.

But when the Grimsby resident heard University of Western Ontario
planetary scientist Phil McCausland and a team of volunteers would be
taking another look at farmers' fields and escarpment properties in
town over the weekend, the magnetic pull was there.

Reluctant to go trekking through a field of soybean stock stumps on a
cold grey day, Found surveyed the team of eight science researchers,
students and area residents from the sidelines of the Ridge Road farm
property.

"It's No. 1, actually, because it's very expensive," Found said of the
metal-detector prize that tops all others.

"It's good value, if you find one. A lot more so than gold."

For McCausland, the value in finding the rocks is what they reveal
about the history of the solar system.

Searches done last fall by researchers and amateurs turned up 13 tiny
meteorites weighing a paltry total of 215 grams. The biggest chunk
found was 69 grams.

Bigger pieces will be useful to be able to distribute more pieces to
scientists around the globe to study and for collectors who want their
own meteorites, McCausland said.


 Larger rocks would also offer more details and clues about the
context and circumstances of where the rock came from, he said.

McCausland said he believes there could be at least 100 pieces out
there, and the biggest ones have yet to be unearthed.

He spent Friday and Saturday combing farmers' fields on top of the
escarpment looking for bigger pieces of space rock, without success.

"Generally speaking, it's hard to find meteorites in this fall,"
McCausland said of the massive fireball from an asteroid belt between
Mars and Jupiter that a network of cameras caught streaking across the
sky.

"It's not a very productive fall. There's some meteorites that fell in
this general region. We're still talking in numbers, probably less
than 100 that could be recognizable. ... I venture to say that we
might stick at 13 or we might find ultimately upwards of 20 or so out
of it and that may be it. There may be other ones and we'll never find
them."

The two-day search might have been the last official combing of the
area for rock finds.

Researchers are running out of time, money and volunteers for their
systematic search.

A film crew from the National Geographic Channel filmed McCausland's
work in Grimsby on Friday and Saturday as part of a TV episode called
Space Fireballs, which is part of the National Geographic Channel's
Naked Science series. No air date has been set.
Received on Mon 22 Mar 2010 08:03:29 PM PDT