Canadians in the Prairies can help find clues about the Solar System(Forwarded)

Canadian Space Agency

July 25, 2005

Canadians in the Prairies can help find clues about the Solar System

LONGUEUIL, Quebec -- Each of the past five summers, a field campaign has
been organized for the Prairie region to find and study new meteorites.
Tom Weedmark, a geology student from the University of Calgary, is
conducting the Prairie Meteorite Search this summer. Until the end of
August, he will visit towns in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba to
present specimens to interested people so they can learn about the key
characteristics. So if you think you have found a meteorite, bring it
along to be identified.

"Meteorite finds are important because they provide clues about the
history of our Solar System," says Dr. Alan Hildebrand, from the
Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Calgary. "Most
meteorites are fragments of asteroids formed at the birth of our solar
system, and they provide us with precious insights into its origins."

As the second largest country in the world, Canada is a vast target for
meteorites. In the last five years, some 700 meteorites are estimated to
have fallen here. However, meteorites are still some of the scarcest
material on Earth, much more rare than gold. They are sought after by
collectors and researchers alike.

Winnipeg-based rock collector Derek Erstelle is the only person in
Canada to have found two meteorites, the first in 1998 near Pinawa and
the other in 2002 near Bernic Lake, in Manitoba. Finding more than one
meteorite in the same area may indicate that many were carried and left
there by glaciers that retreated from Western Canada at the end of the
last Ice Age.

"Derek found these where two lobes of the Laurentide ice sheet met about
11,500 years ago," says Dr. Hildebrand. "He may have located a meteorite
stranding surface where hundreds or thousands of meteorites were
concentrated by glacial flow and were dumped in a small area when the
ice melted." Dr. Hildebrand says this theory can be tested by
determining how long the Bernic Lake and Pinawa meteorites have been on
Earth, and by searching for more meteorites in the region near Pinawa.

The annual summer Prairie Meteorite Search is led by Dr. Hildebrand of
the University of Calgary, Dr. Peter Brown of the University of Western
Ontario, and Dr. Martin Beech of Campion College at the University of
Regina. The three scientists are members of the Canadian Space Agency's
Meteorites and Impacts Advisory Committee (MIAC), Canada's volunteer
group charged with the investigation of fireballs and the recovery of
meteorites. The Canadian Space Agency is funding the project's field
costs for the summer of 2005.

For further information:

Prairie Meteorite Searcher Tom Weedmark
(403) 852-5613

Dr. Alan Hildebrand, University of Calgary
(403) 220-2291
http://www.geo.ucalgary.ca/PMSearch/

Nicholas Girard
Media Relations, Canadian Space Agency
(450) 926-4370, E-mail: