[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: (meteorobs) Amateur micrometeorite hunters pictures




> So I did some web searching and found some information that suggested it
> might not be so hard to collect mm's. One site suggests the project is
> suitable for children 5 to 7 years old with help from a teacher!

Hi Jim,

I guess these websites are a bit too optimistic in their assessment of
success rates! But perhaps the act of trying is considered most important
(and hey, they are right!).

Zolensky is, just like Frans Rietmeijer at the Institute of Meteoritics at
UNM with whom I collaborate in this, mainly researching stratospheric dust
particles. As I understood it (but I am an amateur just like you in this),
that is a wholy different class of objects compared to the typical MM's
collected from the earth's surface. As I understood it, stratospheric MM's
mostly are small and fragile and have compositions comparable to
carbonaceous meteorite materials. Those particles that get to the earth
surface are more compact and often (not always) contain considerable
Nickeliron. The spherules I searched for are actually not unmolten MM's but
ablation spherules from meteoroid entries. They are more easily to
recognize, because any perfectly spherical particle in the 20-500 micrometer
range stands a good chance of being a cosmic spherule. Like you I use a
magnet to separate possible nickeliferrous spherules from the sediment (but
the residue still is full of terrestrial magnetite particles as well).
A pioneer on MM collection on the earth surface is Michel Maurette, who
collected them from meltwaterpools on the ice of Greenland, and on
Antarctica by melting huge amounts of polar ice. If you try a search on his
name in the NASA ADS service, I guess you'll be able to turn up some usefull
papers on the topic by him. He published a number in a.o. Meteoritics &
Planetary Science. With regard to stratospheric dust particles, there is a
very comprehensive chapter written by Frans Rietmeijer in the book
"Planetary Materials" (ed. J. Papike), Mineralogical Society of America,
Washington D.C., 1998 (= Reviews in Mineralogy 36).

- Marco

---
Marco Langbroek                    private: marco.langbroek@wanadoodot nl
Leiden University                     work: m.langbroek@arch.leidenunivdot nl
Faculty of Archaeology
P.O. Box 9515
http://home.wanadoodot nl/marco.langbroek/
NL-2300 RA Leiden
The Netherlands
---




The archive and Web site for our list is at http://www.meteorobs.org
If you are interested in complete links on the 2001 LEONIDS, see:
http://www.meteorobs.org/storms.html
To stop getting email from the 'meteorobs' list, use the Web form at:
http://www.meteorobs.org/subscribe.html

References: