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Kansas Soil Yields Massive Meteorite
ROMRIX writes "The Discovery Channel is reporting that Scientists have unearthed a 154 pound meteorite from a Kansas field using ground penetrating radar. The article also states that this type of radar may someday be used on Mars to locate water in a future mission."
The largest meteorite found in the US is 15 tons, so 154 pounds isn't all that "massive". What makes this unusual is the fact that it was found using ground penetrating radar, a method that may also be used on Mars.
"There are plenty of other places in our own world that could probably benefit from the discovery of water...try Africa.
Hum, check out the predictions: http://www.unep.org/vitalwater/21.htm - the US and half of Europe could be joining the club soon.
Ground penetrating radar will likely not be as effective in places like africa which tends to have a lot of salt in the ground in areas where water is no longer available. This technology is often used by the military in order to find things like hidden weapons and landmines, though is virtually ineffective in many desert areas due to the sodium deposits from salt. fortunately for mars, there probably isn't the problem with salts in the soils, and this method should be highly effective.
Linux is to the internet as Duct Tape is to the Universe.
The problem is exotics (being any plant 'out of place')
Local plants don't need watering, or they wouldn't survive in the area to start with.
Plus 'weeds' (being usually perfectly good plants that just aren't exotics) will normally prosper during hosepipe bans. We've had one over the last six months, and the local plants in our garden have barely noticed.
Ideally people would switch to local plants and save water. Alas that's about as likely as people not wanting dyed clothes (dying eats loads of water) or makeup, or any of the other things that we use to display our prosperity.
GPR is a pretty common geophysical technique. Yes, it can be used to find meteorites, and yes it can (and will) be used for a future Mars rover mission. Such a system is already in development.
GPR is also used for many other things, like:
- groundwater contamination
- finding buried garbage
- finding voids under roads
- finding corpses
- determining stratigraphy of surficial sediments
For comparison several tons of meteoric material enters the Earth's atmosphere every day. If you've roof gutters try running a magnet over the accumulated sediment in the bottom of them, much of the metallic material collected thus is likely recently extraterrestrial in origin. This dust is considered an important part of the hydrologic cycle, providing upper-atmosphere nuclii for water to condense around and form raindrops.
Of meteoric material that reaches the Earth's surface structurally intact (roughly 1cc or larger) there are only about 500 or so objects a year, of which around 1% are recovered for study. The rest are finds of older falls.
These finds are easiest in plains where they stand out in the soft soil with little other stony material. Another good source is permanent ice & snow fields. In both wind erosion & frost heaving can leave these sitting out on the surface for the collecting. "Dust bowls", when local vegetation dries in a drought up and winds scour the soil away, and the many retreating glacers due to global warming, both yield rich harvests. There are also places where a larger meteor broke up at low altitude and showered the area with a rich concentration of smaller bits.
Lastly there is an active market in meteorites, for both hobbyist collectors and those who ascribe religious or spiritual aspects to these stones. Unfortunately their collection is typically undocumented, so any possibility of determining their age or circumstance in situ is lost. That they go directly into private hands means that they are generally unavailable for research. Not all meteorites are of great scientific interest, but several rare types do contain important clues to the nature of the early solar system and the current makeup of asteroids & other like objects.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
I would like to clarify about your weeds comment. At least in Alberta Canada (part of the great plains the bread basket of the world) ahref=http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/dept docs.nsf/all/acts4705?opendocument/rel=url2html-95 8http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs. nsf/all/acts4705?opendocument/>
This list of weeds is pretty much standard for Canada and (my guess) the states. It's also a safe bet to say that 99% of them are NOT native to north america. Case in point the tumble weed is from Russia. I know it ruins all those spaghetti westerns.
Hee Hee The drinking bird does all the work!
It took me several scans of the linked website to notice the photo foolishly placed in what is rapidly becoming the de facto column for advertisements.e _tec_zoom0.html?category=technology&guid=200610171 10000/
Here is a link to the full sized photo for those interested
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/10/17/meteorit
Note to website developers: If you use 'standard' layouts like this, don't bury information in places people have grown accustomed to seeing adverts !