[meteorite-list] Sutter's Mill in the NEWS!!

From: Ruben Garcia <rubengarcia85382_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2012 18:31:14 -0700
Message-ID: <CAJet4mPkVcVZ6GO7J6v_gsvysL1A+zdVJoiFC7dzzoP+sXyApw_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hi all,

This was just forwarded to me by someone who saw it on Facebook today.
After reading it - I asked and received permission to re-post it here.
It's pretty cool stuff.

The following is a quote from Steve Arnold (Meteorite Men)


Friends, I am excited, honored and a little humbled.

Today, (Dec. 21) a significant story about the Sutter's Mill meteorite
was published in Science Magazine that I had a small but exciting role
to play in. The Science Magazine story has 71 distinguished meteorite
scientists from all over the world contributing to it as co-authors,
and #8 on that list is my great friend and neighbor Robert Beauford!

Back in May of this year, Ruben Garcia, who was still hunting and
buying specimens in the Sutter's Mill Strewnfield, had just bought the
5.1g SM#48 specimen from Kelly Heavin, a local resident who had found
it. I, in turn, bought it from Ruben and decided to have him
overnight it directly the wire saw, had it cut it the same night then
had it overnighted it to me the next morning. When I opened the
package I immediately texted Robert and said, "You want to come see
what I got in the mail just now..." He arrived at Qynne's and my store
a few minutes later, with his loop in hand, grin on his face, looking
like a kid sitting by the Christmas tree on Christmas morning.

Robert had followed the buzz of the research from the outside, and the
buzz of the hunt for more Sutter's Mill specimens via the metlist and
correspondence with me, but he also had some inside sources to what
was going on, and since the research was cutting edge science, Robert
was absolutely fascinated by it. This was a very strange space rock,
presenting strange questions, and there was a myriad of potential
answers to those questions.

Within a matter of moments, as Robert stood in my retail meteorite
store, meteorite slice in one hand, a loop in other, his eyes darting
around, looking up, as if he was visually accessing data in the air
above him...science happened!

Robert looked back at the slice he was holding and went "Oooh, oooh,
oooh,...can I borrow this to get it under a microscope?" I said sure.
Later that day, he called and asked if he could take some photos of
the specimen. I said sure. Then he called and asked if he could share
those photos with Dr. Derek Sears who was on the Sutter's Mill
consortium of scientists. I said sure. Finally, he asked if I wanted
to co-author a paper with him. I laughed. Robert didn't. He was
serious. So, I said sure. ;)

Robert noticed some things, structure wise, in one of the slices that
no other scientist on the consortium had noticed...not in the whole
stones nor in the broken fragments they had studied up to that point.
Dr. Sears recognized how potentially significant Robert's discovery
was and agreed with his initial assessment. Robert was invited to join
the consortium and to do more research on his theory and to write a
paper on it to help the team better understand what they were all
studying.

Robert agreed to Dr. Sears' request. His theory proved correct, and
helped turn the ship of scientists in the right direction.

Congrats to Robert and to all the people involved in this project!

It has been a great honor not just to be a part of this, but to
actually watch the cooperation between the commercial side and the
research side of our field working together in an unprecedented manner
and on such a grand scale. Seeing the fruit of that labor published in
Science Magazine is also fantastic!

Making science is fun!

Good job mates!

Meanwhile, Robert's photos of one of our Sutter's Mill slices has made
it into many other stories today, including the New York Times! How
cool is that? Check it out here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/science/space/an-asteroids-fast-fiery-introduction-to-earth.html?ref=space&_r=0

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6114/1583.abstract

http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/2012/12/21/sutters-mill-meteor-fastest/

http://science.kqed.org/quest/2012/12/20/stardust-and-sunbreath-in-the-sutters-mill-meteorite/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50261568/ns/technology_and_science-space/

http://www.space.com/18995-sutters-mill-california-meteorite.html
                

-- 
http://www.MrMeteorite.com
Ruben Garcia

Received on Fri 28 Dec 2012 08:31:14 PM PST