SPOKANE —
I think the most memorable single day of all my years as a student was the afternoon I got to examine moon rocks in graduate school.
Rocks here on Earth are exposed to water throughout their existence, and water acts to break down mineral grains on a tiny scale. If you look at thin slices of rock under a microscope — a normal activity for geologists like me — you see this tiny breakdown at work. To use a technical term, the mineral grains appear “cruddy” because they are breaking down to minerals like clay due to the presence of water.
What impressed me so much about the moon rocks we looked at that memorable afternoon was that they were pristine — they had not reacted with liquid water over time because there isn’t water on the surface of the moon. So looking at the thin sections of moon rocks under the microscope was close to breathtakingly beautiful — the little mineral grains were perfectly formed and preserved.
We had to send people to the moon to bring back the samples I looked at as a student. But sometimes Mother Nature does the hard work of bringing to Earth pieces of the moon and even more distant planets in the solar system. They arrive as meteorites, raining down from the skies.
Recently there’s been some news about a meteorite breaking up over Russia. There’s also been news about a highly unusual and interesting meteorite that landed in Northwest Africa. The glad tidings were published in Science and a piece about them appeared in Science News. The meteorite was given a name based on where it was found, so it’s called Northwest Africa 7034. It’s a piece of Mars — we know that from its chemical composition. NWA 7034 looks like the rocks examined by NASA’s Spirit rover in Gusev Crater.
Meteorites can be dated in the same way that rocks here on Earth can be assigned dates. From “parent/daughter” calculations we can say that NWA 7034 is about 2.1 billion years old. On Earth, geologists would call that time part of the Proterozoic Eon. “Proto” implies earlier, and “zoic” comes from the Greek word for life. Life on Earth 2.1 billion years ago was quite simple, being made up largely of single-celled organisms in the oceans.
On Mars a different set of names describes time. NWA 7034 formed during what’s known on the Red Planet as the Amazonian. Some 2.1 billion years ago stands near the time of linkage between an earlier wet and warm Mars and the dry and cold planet we know today.
One of the really interesting things about NWA 7034 is that it contains a lot of water. Scientists believe the water inside NWA 7034 came from Mars, and is not contamination from the Earth, because of the different ratios of hydrogen types found in the sample.
As further analysis is done on the little meteorite, more information may be teased out of it. That’s good for those of us interested in Mars beyond tales of little green men.
E. KIRSTEN PETERS was trained as a geologist at Princeton and Harvard. This column is a service of the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University.
Opinion
Rocks tell their own, intriguing story
- Opinion
-
-
Seeing yourself as the world sees you
Ever try seeing yourself as others see you, or your piece of the world as others see your piece of the world?
You know, if you could get others to see you, or if you could get other parts of the world to see your part of it?
Narcissism and inferiority, both, can trap us in front of a mirror, admiring or lamenting, pleased or not pleased by the vision we presumably offer others.
Yet, what’s happened over the last three days, since yet another deadly tornado rolled through Moore, offers an entirely different perspective.
Through strength or weakness, we may take an interest in how we project. But when the “Today Show” is broadcast from the rubble and the network evening news has placed its anchor amidst the carnage; and when the news channels descend upon the destruction and every newspaper in the country is playing your and your neighbors’ plight bigger than its own hometown news, it turns surreal. -
ROCK DOC: Japanese find a new source of natural gas
The name “natural gas” might be a puzzle. After all, how could there be such a thing as unnatural gas? The reason we call natural gas what we do has to do with history. There was a day that people made burnable gas by heating coal. The gases that came off the coal were piped around cities where they did things like light street lamps and even power cook stoves in homes.
Coal gas had its down side. For one thing, it often contained carbon monoxide. And it took energy to make the gas, so it never could be truly cheap. -
Witnesses missing; Behenna case could be heard at Supreme Court
The film “Breaker Morant” was nominated for an Oscar for the best screenplay in 1980. It told the story of Harry “Breaker” Morant, an Australian who served in the British Army and was court-martialed for alleged war crimes during the Boer War in Southern Africa in the early years of the last century.
That conflict pitted the British Army against the descendants of the Dutch settlers who had migrated to what is now South Africa in the 17th and 18th centuries. The majority of them were farmers and in their language of Afrikaans were known as “Boers.” -
Don’t leave Oklahoma!
May is graduation season. As I have done every year as lieutenant governor, I have given multiple commencement speeches. Advice flows freely during this time and it usually runs the gamut. What to do, what not to do, how to do ‘x’, be sure not to do ‘y.’ Too often commencement speakers speak in big generalities. So general, the message is frequently lost or forgotten.
-
Last-minute funding proposals not in state’s best interest
All indications point to this being the last week of this year’s legislative session. The Legislature will go home a week early. This is good news for Oklahomans as not only will there be cost savings but all Oklahomans should breathe a sigh of relief when the Legislature stops making new laws a week ahead of schedule.
As usual, the Legislature will take a number of important votes during the last week. Some will be forced due to attempts to introduce and pass far-reaching, new policies that should have been introduced much earlier in the year. -
BY THE NUMBERS: Oklahoma still needs to invest in its economy
After six months of stagnation, the Oklahoma economy finally appears to be expanding again albeit still weakly. Unfortunately, our leaders aren’t making the investments we need to give our economic prospects a boost.
Last week the Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services reported that in April state General Revenue fund collections were 5.2 percent above the estimate and 14.7 percent higher than last year’s collections. Under normal circumstances, such a report would indicate that the Oklahoma economy was very strong. But this isn’t a normal circumstance, and April isn’t a normal month. -
Americans deserve the truth on Benghazi
Lately, the media has been consumed by the controversies surrounding the White House. Among these controversies is the horrific terrorist attack on the United States’ diplomatic compound in Benghazi that took place Sept. 11, 2012. As more people come forward with additional information regarding the attack on the consulate, many Americans, including myself, are still asking for the truth.
The Obama Administration and the State Department have been less than forthcoming with key information on Benghazi and recent information points toward a major cover-up. -
Seizure of AP phone records insult to independent press
Distrust of government secrecy has been elevated to an exceptional level with the disclosure the Justice Department covertly examined two months of Associated Press phone records to determine who leaked details to the AP about a foiled terrorist plot.
-
HEY HINK: Some people just are not cut out for command
Recent headlines cause me to remember an incident that occurred on an army base some years ago. Warning here: I’m taking some liberties with names and details, but the basic outline of events is accurate.
A certain company commander, let’s call him Captain Duntz, had command of a motor pool on a large army base in the continental U.S. -
We’ve become our own worst enemies
The past couple months have been marked by a seeming unprecedented number of man-made tragedies, as distinct from those caused by violent outbursts of the natural world, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis.
You don’t want to dwell too long on the negative, but we do have to take notice of horrific human events and we owe it to ourselves to respond to them in some way. We don’t always agree on those responses, however, and that usually exacerbates the problem. - More Opinion Headlines
-
Seeing yourself as the world sees you
