[meteorite-list] Meteorite article

From: Darren Garrison <cynapse_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat Dec 11 19:31:41 2004
Message-ID: <a84nr0tgldaknj8guinf154fcbeq84bevq_at_4ax.com>

Sorry if this has already been posted, I don't remember seeing it.

http://www.oregonlive.com/science/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/science/1102424284156630.xml

Mad about meteorites
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
RICHARD L. HILL
The retired Idaho rancher suspected that the small stone he had found with his metal detector in
Utah was a rare rock from space -- a meteorite that had taken perhaps millions of years to reach
Earth.

The odds weren't on his side. Meteorites are rare, and only 16 had ever been found in Utah. Like
many Northwesterners, he wondered how he might identify his find.

An Internet search led him to the right place: a fledgling facility at Portland State University
called the Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory.

"He sent us the rock, and it looked very promising," said Melinda Hutson, one of the lab's three
founders. "So we cut it open, and sure enough, it was a meteorite."

After studying and classifying the meteorite with sophisticated microscopes, the lab sent its
findings -- with a proposed name of "Greener Reservoir" for the area where it was found -- to the
Meteoritical Society, the international nonprofit that catalogs all meteorites, for official
recognition.

The retired rancher, whom the lab declined to name for privacy reasons, also found two small
meteorites in central Idaho that the lab is beginning to study and classify. Only five meteorites
had previously been found in Idaho.

It's the kind of case that Hutson, Alex Ruzicka and Dick Pugh had in mind when they came up with the
idea for the lab over dinner about three years ago. With the closest meteorite labs in St. Louis,
Los Angeles and Arizona, they saw a need for a place in the Northwest that could serve as a
repository and classification center.

"So we hung out a placard and said, 'Here we are,' " Hutson said. The university gave them space,
but the three operate the lab without pay in their spare time.

In addition to helping people identify meteorites, Ruzicka, Hutson and Pugh set up the lab to study
meteorites and to educate students and the public about the extraterrestrial rocks.

The lab's collection has grown from one meteorite -- a 35-pound iron meteorite from a crater near
Odessa, Texas -- to more than 250, a collection worth more than $1 million. Most pieces were donated
by private collectors; a few were bought with NASA grant money for specific research projects.

Ruzicka and Hutson, a husband-and-wife team, are research assistant professors in PSU's geology
department, and Hutson also teaches geology and astronomy at Portland Community College. Both have
doctorates in planetary science from the University of Arizona.

Pugh, a retired science teacher who taught at Cleveland High School for 31 years, is well known in
the Northwest for his expertise in meteorites. He became interested in them while studying under the
late professor Erwin Lange at PSU, where Pugh received his bachelor's and master's degrees in
science.

Calls from all over

The lab's reputation is spreading quickly. The operators have had calls from throughout the
Northwest and from as far as Georgia and New York.

"I get two or three phone calls and e-mails a week from people all over the state who want me to
take a look at the possible meteorites they've found," Pugh said. "Two weeks ago, I went to Eugene,
Roseburg, Grants Pass, Klamath Falls, Medford, Bend and downtown Mosier looking at rocks.

"I looked at a lot of basalt and slag, but no new meteorites."

Meteorites are scientifically important discoveries that reveal the origins and evolution of our
solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. They show what elements and gases were present in the
swirling dust before the sun and planets were formed.

Most are fragments of asteroids that orbit the sun in an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Only about 30 meteorites from Mars and another 30 from the moon have been found on Earth. They are
the result of comets or asteroids slamming into the moon or Mars and breaking off chunks that
ultimately land on Earth.

Only four meteorites have been found in Oregon and only a half-dozen in Washington -- the states'
heavy vegetation and basalt-covered landscape make them hard to find.

Oregon's big one

Oregon is known for its 151/2-ton Willamette Meteorite, the world's sixth-largest meteorite and the
largest discovered in the United States. It was found in West Linn in 1902 and donated to the
American Museum of Natural History in 1906 by a wealthy benefactor who had bought the rock from
Oregon Iron & Steel. Pieces of the meteorite are in museums and private collections.

The other Oregon meteorites are the Sams Valley meteorite, a 15-pound rock found about 10 miles
northwest of Medford in 1894; the 38-pound Klamath Falls meteorite, found in Klamath County in 1952;
and five fragments called the Salem meteorite, which hit the roof of a Salem house in 1981.

"What we'd like to find is meteorite No. 5 from Oregon," Pugh said. "Finding a new meteor is like
finding a new species -- it's a really big deal."

Fireballs -- large, bright meteors -- that zipped across the Northwest in recent years probably
produced other meteorites, but none has turned up.

A booming fireball lit up the Northwest sky early on June 3, breaking into pieces south of the Puget
Sound area. Based on eyewitness accounts, the lab's researchers think the meteor might have landed
around Randle or Packwood, Wash., in a remote area between Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens.

Falling pieces of outer space recently have grabbed attention across the country. In October, a
2-pound meteorite slammed into a horse pasture near a farmhouse in Berthoud, Colo. In March 2003, a
meteorite crashed through the roof of a house in Park Forest, Ill., smashing a computer printer.

"There's probably been a couple of hundred pounds of rocks that have come down in the Northwest in
the past 20 years -- I'd settle for just finding one," Pugh said.

A "dream come true"

The cramped basement lab has no space to display its meteorites, and it recently loaned about 50 to
the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals in Hillsboro. Ruzicka won a grant from the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration to assemble the exhibit as well as to develop teacher workshops
and other educational materials. The exhibit features meteorites from the moon and Mars.

The lab's biggest benefactor is Edwin Thompson, a professional meteorite dealer from Lake Oswego who
has donated more than 150 meteorites, a safe and equipment.

"The lab is my dream come true," said Thompson, who has been buying and selling meteorites for 25
years. "There is a lot of interest in this area in meteorites, and there are a lot of collectors who
haven't had a place where they can donate their collections. Now we have a repository here that will
preserve them."

He said meteorites can sell for millions of dollars because they are the "ultimate collectible, a
piece of rock that has been drifting in the cold of outer space for millions of years and it just
happens to fall to Earth in a violent fireball."

Thompson said the lab could put Oregon on the map in the meteorite research field, drawing
scientists and students from around the world. He rates Ruzicka as one of the nation's leading
meteorite researchers.

NASA sends money

In addition to the NASA exhibit grant, Ruzicka has two other space agency grants for meteorite
studies.

In one, he will look at silicate inclusions -- minerals that contain silicon, oxygen and one or more
metals that are embedded in iron meteorites. The puzzle is how the silicates, some of which are
unusual in composition, become mixed with the iron.

"If we can figure how this happens, then we've learned something about the melting and separation
processes that were occurring, probably not just on asteroids but on planets, too," Ruzicka said.

The other grant allows Ruzicka to examine the formation of chondrules, tiny glass spheres found in
stone meteorites called chondrites. He is looking specifically at silicate minerals called relict
olivine grains that did not completely melt.

"By studying these things and their relationship to the surroundings, you can understand a little
bit more about the process," Ruzicka said. "It's been a major puzzle since the late 1800s, when
people first recognized these as melted droplets. Scientists called them fiery rain."

In addition to research, Ruzicka and Hutson have been teaching classes about meteorites,
astrogeology and life in the universe. The three want the lab to expand and become a permanent
program at PSU.

"We want to leave a legacy of a planetary science-meteorite program at Portland State with a
collection that is a scientific collection, a place where scientists can come for samples for their
specific studies," Hutson said.

"We want to create a program here that outlasts us because we're passionate about meteorites."

Richard L. Hill: 503-221-8238; richardhill_at_news.oregonian.com
Received on Sat 11 Dec 2004 07:31:37 PM PST