Canadian Meteorite Hunter Scores Again

http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/july05/meteorite.html

Manitoba meteorite hunter scores again
University of Calgary
July 14, 2005

Meteorite "magnet" becomes first Canadian to discover two separate
space
rocks and may have located possible meteorite dumping ground in
Manitoba.

A new meteorite identified by the Prairie Meteorite Search is posing a
mystery about why so many meteorites have been found in eastern
Manitoba, and has set a new Canadian record for the man behind the
latest out-of-this-world find.

Winnipeg-based rock hound Derek Erstelle has become the first person in
Canada to discover two separate meteorites after he uncovered a
previously-overlooked meteorite while sifting through some of the
unusual rocks he has collected over the years.

After finding two fragments of an iron meteorite in the fall of 2002
near Bernic Lake, in eastern Manitoba, Erstelle decided to dig out a
similar-looking specimen he discovered about 40-kilometres away near
Pinawa in 1998 or 1999. Tests conducted by U of C planetary scientist
Dr. Alan Hildebrand and Lakehead University's Dr. Stephen Kissin
confirmed that the Pinawa specimen is a rock from outer space and
originated from a different source than the Bernic Lake specimens.

"I was inspired to look through my stored rocks for this other rock
that I had found before the Bernic Lake specimens," said Erstelle, who
is an experienced rock collector. "I'm just out there knocking dust off
the rocks when I'm out hunting."

The Pinawa meteorite is the 7th meteorite to be recovered in Manitoba,
and is the 4th Manitoba "find" to be identified by the Prairie
Meteorite
Search. Meteorites are broadly classified as being either "falls"
corresponding to meteorites that were seen to fall to Earth, and
"finds"
which correspond to meteorites found serendipitously, but with unknown
fall dates. The meteorite weighs approximately 2.5 kg and is the 65th
meteorite to be recovered in Canada.

Hildebrand, holder of a Canada Research Chair in Planetary Sciences,
calls the discovery very surprising. The extraordinary thing is that
two
different meteorites could be found only 40 kilometres apart in
forested
land, where it is much more difficult to find them than on farm or
pasture land. Also, the two meteorites are more weathered than is
typical for Canadian iron meteorites.

"The meteorite looked much like the two Bernic Lake meteorites so,
although they were found about 40-kilometres apart, I still expected
them to be related. We have the makings of a puzzle here." Hildebrand
said.

The discovery of more than one meteorite in the same area may be
evidence that many meteorites were deposited in eastern Manitoba when
glaciers retreated from Western Canada at the end of the last Ice Age.

"The area where Derek found these meteorites is where two lobes of the
Laurentide ice sheet met about 11,500 years ago," Hildebrand said. "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."
Hildebrand said 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.

Tom Weedmark, a U of C geology student, is the Prairie Meteorite
Searcher for the summer of 2005. This field campaign locates meteorites
by encouraging prairie residents to have rocks identified that they
suspect may be meteorites. The project consists of local publicity and
visits by Tom to prairie towns to show meteorite specimens and to
identify possible meteorites. He will be looking in northern Alberta
for
the rest of July before heading east to Saskatchewan and Manitoba
during
August.

"The continued success of the search indicates that many more prairie
residents have meteorites that haven't yet been studied," Weedmark
says.
"I hope that we can make this Centennial year a record year for
meteorite recovery in Canada."

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

For more information:

Derek Erstelle may be contacted at (204) 633-1601.
Prairie Meteorite Searcher Tom Weedmark can be reached at (403)
852-5613.
Dr. Alan Hildebrand can be reached at (403) 220-2291.
Dr. Stephen Kissin can be contacted at (807) 343-8220 or (807)
344-9448.

Additional information about the Prairie Meteorite Search is available
on the project's website: www.geo.ucalgary.ca/PMSearch/

Media contact:

Grady Semmens
University of Calgary, media relations
Phone: (403) 220-7722
Cell: (403) 651-2515
Email: