(meteorobs) More adventures

[Bruce McCurdy]

    It's been an exciting and tiring couple of days since last I wrote my first report Friday night from the Marsden Hotel in rural Saskatchewan. I'm now home safe and sound after two expeditions into the field to hunt for meteorites. 

    On Saturday morning Frank Florian and I continued our expedition as representatives of the Telus World of Science - Edmonton. We prowled the area by car, getting out to explore a few small ponds and examine various suspect rocks by the side of the road and in the ditches. Eventually we approached the farm where the original finds had been made. The farmer, Ian Mitchell, was hanging out at the entrance restricting access to just Dr. Hildebrand and his research crew from University of Calgary. He had met us the previous day during the media scrums when Frank had interviewed him on camera for a planned exhibit at TWoSE's Space Place gallery, and I had passed him an RASC IYA2009 calendar in recognition of his good will towards the scientific community. Our own good will was repaid immediately, as rather than turn us away Ian said he realized we were serious in our pursuit, and directed us towards a remote group of beaver ponds in a corner of his property well away from other searchers. 

    We headed in that direction, took a wrong turn and spent quite a little time on dry land exploring a cart path and a stubble field, still without success. There were many "meteor-wrongs" including terrestrial rocks, clods of dirt, vegetative matter such as wood chips, and animal droppings. With all my experience observing meteors I reassured Frank that we needed to persist, and that our patience would be rewarded. I added hopefully, "We need a little one for you, a little one for me, and a big one for the science centre!" Little did I know that was exactly how things would unfold. 

    Eventually we scrambled and slid down a steep and slippery embankment into the coulee where we located the beaver ponds. A preliminary scan turned up nothing, but on our second trip to the biggest pond Frank found a meteorite roughly 2-3 cm in all dimensions embedded in the ice. A  few minutes later I found one of the same size -- what a thrill that was! A little while later I came across a somewhat larger specimen maybe twice as large that we had to chip free of the ice. Finally Frank found a very small meteorite of about 1 cubic cm. 

    We were running out of light so scrambled back up the embankment with our finds safely wrapped and stored. We returned to Ian Mitchell, who recorded our finds for Dr. Hildebrand but as I had hoped, told us to keep the meteorites we had found. We promised to bring them first to Dr. Chris Herd at the University of Alberta (Frank delivered them today), and once Chris is done with them, to use them for display purposes at the science centre. I am hopeful but not assured of getting "my" first, smaller fragment to use in conjunction with school and public talks. I expect I'll be speaking frequently of the Lone Rock meteorites during IYA!

    Tired and happy from our successful expedition, Frank and I returned to Edmonton late Saturday, our meteorites, images, and memories safely in tow. But at 6 the next morning, I was right back on the road, this time accompanying Edmonton RASCals Alister Ling and Franklin Loehde who were keen to do their own search. Even though I no longer had the "in" of officially representing the science centre I thought my local knowledge of the people and the area might be of use. 

    Alas, our ~six-hour search turned up nary a meteorite among the three of us. We explored the train tracks and some small ponds on public land which may have already been picked over or else they were outside the fall zone. As chance had it at mid-day we encountered Les Johnson and family; the discoverers of the large 13 kg meteorite had decided to return it to the land owner, Al Mitchell (brother of Ian). Les took us to the exact point where he had discovered the monster, and there was a ~10 cm deep indentation on the ground in which the meteorite fit perfectly. Les said he had actually found it just beside the hole; it had hit and bounced out. As it happened Al Mitchell was still in the area, as was Dr. Alan Hildebrand of U. of C., Dr. Martin Beech of the University of Regina, and the big meteorite itself.  

    The door to private lands thus opened, Dr. Hildebrand could scarcely refuse our offer to help, and for the rest of the day we traipsed through parts of the A.Mitchell property, through grassland and cow pastures, areas of heavy brush and frozen marshes where a broken ankle was a misstep away. Franklin took a tumble at one point and I nearly fell a couple of times, but luckily no harm done.  We tried to focus particularly on frozen ponds where meteorites will not survive the spring thaw. Our search was more exhausting than exhaustive ... I'm sure it would take a coordinated team of a hundred people a week to properly search the full extent of the fall area, some of which is completely unsearchable. 

    One last thing: on Friday when the press scrum took place, I scouted around the area with my trusty 10x50 binnies and spotted a second small slough which when seen from a little further down the road had a very likely black suspect projecting out of it. It was in a fenced area, so I couldn't get close to it, but I told Ellen Milley (the grad student who made the original find) about my preliminary observation, and she undertook to check it out a.s.a.p. On Saturday the farmer confirmed that it had indeed been a meteorite and an interesting specimen at that; and yesterday Dr. Hildebrand told me it was an "oriented meteorite", which as he explained it doesn't tumble on the way in and therefore develops a distinctive cone-shaped melt pattern. Alister later told me the shape of the Apollo capsules (or was it the heat shields? this was on the ride home) was designed in part by the aerodynamic structures formed naturally by oriented meteorites. I keep telling people I'm a meteoricist, not a meteoriticist, but I'm learning! Unfortunately, I never did get to see this particular specimen ... yet. Maybe I can coax a picture from somebody on the research team at some point. 

    Meanwhile, I will soon post a few pics of my own to a website Stephen Bedingfield is setting up for the purpose. I'll post a link in due course. 

    Bruce
    *****