[meteorite-list] Tagish Lake petri dish

[joseph_town at att.net]

Hi all,

I've been following this story for a while. I'm sure many on the list have as well. My question is simple. How can a meteorite that has traveled through our murky atmosphere, excuse me Canada, that falls on the surface of a lake and has been stored in some guys freezer be considered as pristine as if none of those things happened?

I can see that his stuff might be in a better state of preservation than most but will the tater tots smeared on it be a subject of new studies and scientific conjecture? Were they just stored in a household freezer all these years? If so they have been in a petri dish.

Bill

 
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Armando Afonso" <armandoafonso at oniduo.pt>
> Calgary - To scientists, they are priceless clues about the origins of 
> life, but now, six years after he found some frozen meteorite fragments 
> that weigh roughly as much as two blocks of butter, a Canadian has 
> cashed in.
>    The price tag: $750,000.
>    And as a bonus, the space rocks that landed in Canada and were poised 
> to go to the United States are staying here.
>    "It's been a little tortuous at times," Jim Brook said yesterday from 
> his home in Atlin, in the northwest corner of British Columbia, not far 
> from where the meteorite crashed to Earth.
>    "There was no significant interest in Canada for quite a while, and 
> eventually, we were able to get something lined up, so I'm glad they're 
> staying," Mr. Brook said.
>    The meteorite fragments will be housed at the University of Alberta 
> in Edmonton and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
>    For almost seven million years, the space rock travelled at 10 
> kilometres a second and covered a distance of a half-billion kilometres 
> before it collided with the Earth's atmosphere in January, 2000.
>    The 200-tonne rock was between 25 and 30 kilometres above the ground 
> when it exploded and emerged as a fireball over parts of British 
> Columbia and Yukon.
>    Several hundred pieces, some as large as footballs, landed on frozen 
> Tagish Lake, which straddles the B.C. and Yukon boundary.
>    Miraculously, about 850 grams of the Tagish Lake meteorite remained 
> in a pristine state.
>    The fragments were frozen and uncontaminated despite a fiery descent 
> to Earth.
>    "This material is extremely rare," said Sonia Lismer, manager of 
> movable cultural property with Canadian Heritage, which kicked in more 
> than $437,000 to keep the meteorite in Canada.
>    Mr. Brook, who is a resort operator and has a scientific background, 
> missed the light show, but a week later, he spotted the dark chunks of 
> rock while driving his pickup across the lake.
>    He knew not to contaminate them by touching them with his bare hands.
>    "It's pretty amazing when you consider that they came down right 
> there on the lake and at that time of year, when there was some snow 
> around," he said at the time.
>    "The whole thing was a real stroke of luck."
>    He put the rock fragments in his freezer.
>    Researchers determined that the meteorite, which is fragile and more 
> ice-like than rock-hard, was the first to come from a thick band of 
> asteroids between Mars and Jupiter.
>    NASA scientists found previously unseen organic material in the 
> carbonaceous chondrite fragments. They detected tiny globules of 
> hydrocarbons, which were formed long before our own solar system and 
> are the perfect homes for primitive organisms.
>    Under Canadian law, meteorites belong to the person who finds them. 
> Mr. Brook began shopping the fragments around.
>    He found buyers in the United States, but Ottawa turned down his 
> application for an export permit because it aims to keep cultural 
> property of outstanding significance and national importance at home.
>    Last June, the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board, an 
> independent tribunal, gave federally designated Canadian institutions 
> six months to match the market value of the rocks. If they failed, Mr. 
> Brook could sell them as he pleased.
>    The University of Alberta, the Royal Ontario Museum, Natural 
> Resources Canada and the Canadian Space Agency began fundraising, but 
> applied for federal grants to make up a $313,000 gap.
>    The grants were approved late last year and announced yesterday.
>    "It's going to enable a really wonderful camaraderie of experts 
> sharing this material for research and it's going to build on the 
> existing research that has already taken place with NASA and that 
> research is going to extend globally," Ms. Lismer said.
>    The University of Alberta has 650 grams of the fragments and the ROM 
> has 200 grams. The ROM will display a 52-gram fragment.
>    Christopher Herd, a professor with the department of Earth and 
> atmospheric sciences at the University of Alberta, said the frozen 
> fragments will allow researchers to see organic molecules that are 
> naturally within the meteorite as well as volatile substances - perhaps 
> extraterrestrial ices.
>    "It gives us a snapshot of what was happening when the solar system 
> formed 4½ billion years ago and it's unlike any other meteorite even of 
> its own kind," Dr. Herd said.
> 



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