Posted on: Friday, April 19, 2002
Meteorites topic of lecture, displays at UH-Manoa
By Catherine E. Toth
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Linda Martel of the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics shows off some meteorites. Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser . . . SOEST 6th biennial Open House • 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. today, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. tomorrow
. . . Lecture • "Searching for Meteorites in Antarctica: Why and How" by Linda Martel (part of the Hawai'i Space Lecture Series)
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The sound of nothing.
It's something Ben Bussey can't forget — a hollow, empty sound that swept over him, consumed him, during his first trip to Antarctica.
"It's the quietest place on Earth," said the postdoctoral geophysicist, one of about a dozen researchers from the University of Hawai'i-Manoa who have collected meteorites on the arctic continent for the National Science Foundation over the past 25 years. "There are very few places where you actually hear nothing. Really nothing."
Last year Bussey spent seven weeks during the summer — in Antarctica, that's December through January — carefully collecting meteorites on the frozen surface, literally picking up hundreds of rocks that have fallen from outer space.
Extreme-weather gear, photos from Antarctic excursions and meteorites — the star attraction — will be on display this weekend at a School of Ocean & Earth Science & Technology open house at UH.
NSF expedition teams, made up of about 10 researchers from all over the world, gather the meteorites for research purposes. They are sorted, categorized and stored at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. Any researcher can ask to borrow these meteorites, which are studied to uncover the origins of our solar system.
"We're giving kids a chance to put their hands on the actual rocks and to talk to the real people who were actually there," said Linda Martel, a geologist and educational specialist at UH, who helped collect more than 300 meteorites on Antarctica from December to January.
The free event will also feature displays and hands-on demonstrations focusing on the research done by UH geologists, ranging from volcanoes to earthquakes to marine geology. The goal is to educate the public about the research work and opportunities in Hawai'i in the fields of geology, geophysics, oceanography and meteorology.
And to convince kids of one thing: "That science is cool," said Sasha Krot, an associate professor and meteoriticist at UH. "That's the most important thing."
Science can take you to the most unexpected parts of the world, the meteorite hunters say. Places like Antarctica.
It takes almost an entire day to get from Hawai'i to the fifth largest continent in the world. After clearing physical and dental examinations, the researchers travel the 4,700 miles to New Zealand, where they pick up extreme-weather clothing and accessories. From there they take an eight-hour flight to McMurdo Station, a military airbase on Ross Island, just off the continent proper.
The station, a hub of structures and warehouses, juts through the landscape of ice, a strange sight to behold in the middle of desolation. Stranger still are the two bars and the two-lane bowling alley on the base for the more than 1,000 people who live here during the summer months, when the sun never goes down. During the winter months, only about 250 people, who all passed psychological tests, remain during the dark months at the station.
At McMurdo the researchers go through survival training, which includes learning how to use and repair snowmobiles, and pick up food for the seven-week expedition. The arctic temperatures make for a perfect freezer setting, so the researchers never have to rely on freeze-dried food. Instead, they feast on steaks, shrimp and scallops, aside from typical convenience store fare.
"There were two basic food groups there," Bussey said with a laugh. "Pringles and chocolate."
For the seven weeks, the researchers lived in heated tents, putting together puzzles, playing cribbage, checking e-mail and watching DVDs when they weren't collecting meteorites outside.
"The chore was actually having to chip ice every night from our 'yard' and melt it for water," Martel said.
Collecting meteorites isn't as easy as just picking up rocks off an icy surface. Each meteorite is plucked with tongs and stored in plastic bags to ensure the samples aren't contaminated. Sometimes the researchers come across a lunar or Martian meteorite, identified by their distinct physical differences. (Meteorites from the moon tend to be a lighter shade of gray; ones from Mars look glassy and shiny rather than dull.)
"But we don't need to find meteorites from Mars or the moon for the expedition to be special," Krot said. "Everything we find is important."
