Kansas Soil Yields Massive Meteorite 172
ROMRIX writes "The Discovery Channel is reporting that Scientists have unearthed a 154 pound meteorite from a Kansas field using ground penetrating radar. The article also states that this type of radar may someday be used on Mars to locate water in a future mission."
Superman? (Score:3, Funny)
Nope, Dorothy Gale -- and she was framed! (Score:2)
Don't wait until we get to Mars... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Don't wait until we get to Mars... (Score:5, Informative)
Hum, check out the predictions: http://www.unep.org/vitalwater/21.htm [unep.org] - the US and half of Europe could be joining the club soon.
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Re:Don't wait until we get to Mars... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't wait until we get to Mars... (Score:5, Informative)
Local plants don't need watering, or they wouldn't survive in the area to start with.
Plus 'weeds' (being usually perfectly good plants that just aren't exotics) will normally prosper during hosepipe bans. We've had one over the last six months, and the local plants in our garden have barely noticed.
Ideally people would switch to local plants and save water. Alas that's about as likely as people not wanting dyed clothes (dying eats loads of water) or makeup, or any of the other things that we use to display our prosperity.
Weeds (Score:3, Informative)
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The link is
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.
Cut and paste until I learn.
A nice simple online guide reference would be nice if any one knows one.
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I'm in the UK, and I do find it irritating that some of our nice native plants that are often required by native fauna are ripped up and replaced with unsuitable but 'pretty' plants that then require pandering/watering constantly.
I don't have much technical knowledge in the area, but I have had friends who did, and despaired at the damage exotics cause.
The link seems to have been slashdotted, it won't open (serves you right for being informative
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Unfortunately, a solid core of fuckwits [gardenadvice.co.uk] still raom the garden centers of olde Englande. There was some guy on TV last year proudly displaying his Knotweed, not really understanding that his grass clippings were controlled waste [netregs.gov.uk] and required special documents to be allowed to legally dispose
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I knew about the victorians, those grand gardens and their competition to have the finest plants left us with a whole load of problems.
I prefer the semi-wilderness aproach to gardening, a nice lawn, some paving for social events, and a large unmanaged area in which can be found all sorts of insects and animals. Some find that untidy, but I like the variety
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I lived in Barstow California (death valley) for a couple years. It disgusted me how many people had lawns which were watered every day. Hell, some little areas in town even mandated having a lawn. These are 2 of the top reason's I couldn't live there. If we could find a way to get water easily i
Wild grasses vs. mowing (Score:2)
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There are disadvantages, we now can't use a portion of our patio because of birdsnests we daren't disturb. Still watching the parents feed them is a joy.
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I used this site [htmlhelp.com] a lot when I was first learning my html skillz. Be warned,
Oh, and welcome from a fellow Canadian!
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I wish that the grass in our lawn grew less. There's been times when I had to mow every four days. You can almost hear the grass growing. That's because it rains every single day for at least 15 minutes during the summer, and about twice a week during the winter.
No sane person waters their yard. No one wants their grass to grow into three feet long strands that are sharp like knives.
I live in a maritime zone (specifically, Florida). I im
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I don't know what you are talking about, almost everyone in Florida has an irrigation system and uses it for 6 months a year. During the dry season the grass will dry up and die without irrigation. I don't think people should use grass in Florida, it isn't native and hogs valuable groundwater reserves. The recent increase in sinkhole formation in Florida is correlated with the decline in the water table, particularly in Central Florida. Sinkholes are a natural occurrence but they haven't happene
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Yes it is. [wikipedia.org]
The grass in my yard is named after the location it comes from, and it comes from South Florida. Some people have irrigation systems for the dry season, but the grass will recover from any loss during the dry season even if you leave it alone. It has to get so scorching as to be dangerous for people before it'll really hurt the grass.
It grows here naturally.
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As for where you live, All we have to do is clone you and replace you're neighbors with you, and the problem would go away..
Sadly, the percentage of people with common sense on this issue is distressingly small.
More buffalo (Score:1)
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I saw a feature on the RFD channel (379 on DirecTV) last fall about a Canadian rancher's setup for Bison. Everything was structured so that the animals had no human contact or could not easily see them as they were worked. At no time were the workers in the pens with the animals.
Contrast this to cattle where, except for the odd bull or cow that is protecting her newborn
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That's nothing that a dozen generations of selective breeding can't fix.
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That's nothing that a dozen generations of selective breeding can't fix.
Or even fewer generations of crossbreeding [wikipedia.org].
Mmm, beefalo.
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I'll stick to regular cows. They are hard enough to milk and they are not nearly as twitchy as buffalos.
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A good idea where possible, and definitely something to strive towards, but not realistic. First good luck on finding native grasses; at best maybe you may find an Indian who remembers them being mentioned in the stories his or her great grandfather told. Second, rocks, bark,
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The problem is that in large areas of the country, the water doesn't come from the ocean (as rain or snow) in the first place, at least not recently. A lot of western (at least) states get a great deal of their water from wells that tap into aquifers that have been slowly collecting water for thousands (at least) of years, and are draining them much faster than they are replenished.
Re:Don't wait until we get to Mars... (Score:5, Informative)
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Indeed, one of the surprise discoveries from an early Shuttle radar-mapping mission was that, over the Sahara, they were getting back images from several meters under the sand, showing old water courses and in some cases ruins of early settlements quite well.
In general ground penetrating radar works better in less conductive soils. Damp soils with high salt content are more conductive than damp soils without,
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Maybe because he saw this [slashdot.org]?
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People following that logic ten years ago were telling us oil was going to have run out by about now. Using new technology they found extra reserves where they couldn't have looked before.
But yes, using groundwater to alleviate the country's problems doesn't sound like a great solution. Lack of seasonal fluctuations in supply will lessen the awareness of scarcity (ie they'll leave the taps dripping) or they'l
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Crap, uneconomic sources are simply becoming economic due to increased demand and the finite nature of oil reserves. During the nineties I read about how oil sands would be economical by about 2010. I think they were a tad optomistic, mining oil sand is exactly what they are doing in Canada today.
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But seriously... Most of Africa's population ISN'T living in the desert, like you're imagining. Africa has lots of other climates, and most of the populated areas get plenty of rainfall. (That makes sense, doesn't it? People tend to congregate in areas where they don't DIE OF THIRST.)
Honestly, Africa has suffered its droughts and famines, but rarely is it the case that there is no food. I
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Amusing definition of 'bad government' you have there.
The American pioneers did not have education, health care, or any niceties either. But they did have a good government, which cracked down on predation and left everyone else the hell alone.
Yes, I know that the early government also committed evils. But the vital, essential point, is
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The complicated version of Africa's politics and sufferings is that decades of awful governments have made corruption and authoritarianism the dominant polit
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Been there, seen that. I taught in Malawi about ten years ago. Malawi is a poor country (like almost every country in Africa), and many of its residents suffer from a number of nutritional deficiencies, such as vitamin A blindness. What struck me most about the situation is how unnecessary it is.
Here's a typical situation: A family works a tiny subsistence plot, growing vegetables. They take the vegeta
Using ground penetrating radar, huh? (Score:5, Funny)
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It is, however, strange that underated isn't used.
valuable (Score:2)
Wait, where in Kansas? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait, where in Kansas? (Score:4, Funny)
A friend of mine put a sample of the meteor in a blender then drank it. Now she's the most popular girl in school! I tried it but pftbbtb, I can only talk to bugs and some flannel wearin hick won't leave me alone.
Re:Wait, where in Kansas? (Score:5, Funny)
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How many more have been mislabelled as mere rocks? (Score:4, Insightful)
One good thing about our travels to Mars is that every single person who will be there, at least for the early phases of the colony, will be scientists, so we won't have to worry about mislabelled meteorites.
Re:How many more have been mislabelled ... God! (Score:1, Flamebait)
As the mods have kindly pointed out (Score:1)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_w._bush#Early
So don't blame him on us either!
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We knew the value of space rocks since antiquity (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of the myths around that kind of equipment persisted even after it was known how to just smelt iron ore. E.g., the celtic myths about cold iron against elves. The only iron that can be processed without heating from start to finish is, you guessed, a chunk of stuff that was weapon-grade iron from the start, not ore. That's more often than not a meteorite.
So other than maybe modern times and construction crews with bulldozers, you wouldn't just throw away such a rock if you found one. You'd sell it to a smith for a small fortune, and he'd make a weapon for a king and sell it for a bigger fortune.
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cf: Turin Turambar. You probably wouldn't want to spend too long with t
how short sighted (Score:2)
Re:How many more have been mislabelled as mere roc (Score:2)
Interestingly enough, most meteors and meteorites are found in the Antarctic. Not because it gets struck more frequently, but rather because of how much easier it is to find them. When you see a (black) rock lying on top of 2 miles of (white) ice, it's a safe bet it fell from the sky.
Re:How many more have been mislabelled as mere roc (Score:2)
The entire Earth was formed by small impacts like this, each impact, on average, making the Earth a little larger.
Can't be more than a few thousand years old... (Score:5, Funny)
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Documentation? (Score:3, Interesting)
Some kind of radar-excavator? (Score:4, Insightful)
Should have read "located with the help of ground-penetrating radar".
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actually (Score:4, Informative)
Article Title (Score:1, Funny)
I'm kidding, of course. It's actually quite nice to see this kind of technology in action O:
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Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is much more useful than finding meteorites and looking for water on other planets. Archeologists are using it to non-invasively explore potential and actual dig sites, utilities use it to locate water mains, gas and electrical lines prior to excavation. Geologists are using it to locate anomalies in the ground (caverns, soil stratification), and it is known to be used by militaries to search for and locate foreign underground objects.
I have used GPRs for my work (environm
So not only are there tornados in Kansas (Score:2, Funny)
Re:So not only are there tornados in Kansas (Score:4, Funny)
Near a Small Village? (Score:1, Redundant)
There are some villains in the world that would pay handsomely for this... meteorite.
Found on A Farm... (Score:3, Funny)
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We Live on an Elseworld (Score:3, Funny)
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damn (Score:2)
Excalibur! (Score:1)
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Other benefits of GPR (Score:3, Informative)
GPR is also used for many other things, like:
- groundwater contamination
- finding buried garbage
- finding voids under roads
- finding corpses
- determining stratigraphy of surficial sediments
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http://www.marsis.com/index.php3?page=document_men u.php3 [marsis.com]
Already we have some intriguing scans of layered terrains... http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/polar2006/pdf/807 0.pdf [usra.edu]
Some background on meteorites (Score:5, Informative)
For comparison several tons of meteoric material enters the Earth's atmosphere every day. If you've roof gutters try running a magnet over the accumulated sediment in the bottom of them, much of the metallic material collected thus is likely recently extraterrestrial in origin. This dust is considered an important part of the hydrologic cycle, providing upper-atmosphere nuclii for water to condense around and form raindrops.
Of meteoric material that reaches the Earth's surface structurally intact (roughly 1cc or larger) there are only about 500 or so objects a year, of which around 1% are recovered for study. The rest are finds of older falls.
These finds are easiest in plains where they stand out in the soft soil with little other stony material. Another good source is permanent ice & snow fields. In both wind erosion & frost heaving can leave these sitting out on the surface for the collecting. "Dust bowls", when local vegetation dries in a drought up and winds scour the soil away, and the many retreating glacers due to global warming, both yield rich harvests. There are also places where a larger meteor broke up at low altitude and showered the area with a rich concentration of smaller bits.
Lastly there is an active market in meteorites, for both hobbyist collectors and those who ascribe religious or spiritual aspects to these stones. Unfortunately their collection is typically undocumented, so any possibility of determining their age or circumstance in situ is lost. That they go directly into private hands means that they are generally unavailable for research. Not all meteorites are of great scientific interest, but several rare types do contain important clues to the nature of the early solar system and the current makeup of asteroids & other like objects.
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Thanks for the tip. I will give it a go.
Reminds me of my previous house which was on open land, no trees or hills around. One night I stepped out the front door and something really heavy slammed on to the steel roof just above me. The next day I had a look and there was a small rock in the gutter, about the right size t
"The most documented excavation" (Score:3, Interesting)
In Kansas ? (Score:2, Funny)
For those hoping for a photo... (Score:2, Informative)
Here is a link to the full sized photo for those interested
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2006/10/17/meteorite _tec_zoom0.html?category=technology&guid=200610171 10000/ [discovery.com]
Note to website developers: If you use 'standard' layouts like this, don't bury information in places people have grown accustomed to seeing adverts !
Re:For those hoping for a photo... (Score:5, Funny)
That's nothing (Score:1)
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Since it landed over 80,000 years ago any crater may have eroded away. The meteorite may well have bounced right out of the crater it made. Lots of similar objects on the moon were found beside, not inside, their craters.
On Earth natural erosion will flatten a small crater out in a few hundred years.
How about a link with a picture? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Direct link to 7 picture slideshow (Yahoo) [yahoo.com]
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Northern Virginia? Forum, Wiki, Ticket/Arrest database, etc [fairfaxunderground.com]
"Someday"? (Score:2)
What the (thin) article doesn't say is how this technology is different from, for example, the Italian MARSIS [esa.int] ground penetrating radar, operating on board of the ESA Mars Express probe since 2004, probing for water down to 5 km under the surface. Or the new Shallow Subsurface Radar [nasa.gov] now being deployed by the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter probe.
Massive, indeed (Score:1, Offtopic)
At 154 pounds being just 69.85 kilograms (try google "154 pounds in kilos") I find the meteorite less than massive, sorry.
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Using radar to find water (Score:1)
First we'll have to stop being the worst water wasters on the planet though.
Lordy! Look at all the craters in Kansas! (Score:2)
What I find interesting (Score:2)
Nice monkey (Score:2)