Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old and just a billion years after it took the form of a real planet, structures that resemble upside down egg cartons and broad ice cream cones began to form in the first bodies of water. Some of these formations are still intact today, and geologists have argued and toyed with theories on what formed them.
While it's a typical belief that these formations were the result of primordial geological processes, there's much evidence to suggest they they were the result of organic action, which means they were created by living things - microbes in particular. Such old structures, called stromatolites, have young counterparts with recent ones that are half a billion years old. The evidence for biologic origin takes the form of layers of organic material that is present in the stromatolites.
Theory has it that microbes, likely blue-green algae, create beds on the floors of bodies of water like shallow seas. These beds act to promote deposits of sediments, much like how flypaper collects dust. However, it's been theorized that the microbes grow filaments that catch particles from the water. So it's likely the formations were the result of a play between passive deposition and organic action.
This is an aquarium designed for dinosaur shrimp, otherwise known as triops. They have been in existence on Earth for 350 million years and their eggs, which come with the aquarium package, easily hatch just by adding water! Take a tour far, far back in time with is Star Wars planet Naboo theme aquarium. Click here or on the image to place your order!
Renowned meteorite collector in the Philippines, Allen Yu, talks to Macrocosm Magbook about his fascinating hobby.
How did you become interested in meteorites? It was mid-2005 when I read an article in Astronomy magazine regarding the hobby of collecting meteorites. The author enticed readers to try owning a piece or two, and feel the excitement of holding a piece of space in their own hands. Astronomy has its generations of visual followers, but a meteorite owner incorporates the sense of touch with a sense of awe. I was fascinated by this thought.
I recall browsing through some meteorite articles before that but did not give any serious considerations about them. Initially, I was worried about the price, but after reading more I found out there are affordable specimens to choose from, and that was nice. The article mentioned a website: www.meteoritemarket.com, and later I thought that could be the coolest thing I’ve ever checked out. A marketplace! It’s like a supermarket where I get to pick something [a meteorite] I like and it will be shipped to me!
I’ve been a good client of Amazon.com for some time now, so ordering from overseas through the Internet was not new to me. I already had a unique sense of collecting outrageous things—preferably from out of this world, and was happy to begin serving my astronomical interests with this new stuff. Meteorites fit the shoe perfectly, and while it had rung bells in my head, or at least raised an eyebrow, I believe it should ring bells for everyone else, too—for the sheer joy of owning and showing them off!
When did you start collecting meteorites? So it was June 2005 when I ordered my first two pieces, a Sikhote-Alin individual specimen (left) and a Gibeon slice showing the classic Widmanstatten pattern unique only to celestial irons. Irons are an enigma, in a sense that meteorites should be heavy and dense, and the thought that iron rains from the sky had baffled my mind to no end. I counted days, then weeks, then almost a month—no meteorite in my mail! The dealer forgot to ship it! It was a good thing the dealer added a few baby Sikhote individuals to my order to pacify my restless heart and brewing temper.
To release myself of the stress of waiting, I ordered the Encyclopedia of Meteorites from Amazon, which arrived even before the meteorites themselves. After three weeks and five days, a notice from the post office came to confirm that my registered parcel had arrived. It was perhaps the most exciting moment in my amateur astronomy career—I finally had in my hands a genuine iron meteorite! My imagination flew and I saw it in its journey in space, to its spectacular fall in Russia. I recalled pictures in the pages of astronomy books and magazines, and then there it was—a real piece for me to keep!
To feed my new desire for meteorites, I needed to own some more. It’s an urge that continued to grow. But reality always kicks in, and I realized that owning becomes collecting, and collecting equates to sky’s-the-limit-spending! I made a pact with myself to stabilize my bank accounts and vowed only to order only 2 pieces every two months, to make a mere 12-piece-collection in one year. But it was to no avail. Since then, I’ve been hopelessly bitten by the meteorite bug.
What is your most prized item in your meteorite collection? Goes without saying, that in every collecting hobby, you want the best your money can afford. You want to progress and upgrade. If you are a stamp collector, a Penny Black would be your centerpiece. Fossil collectors would die to own a T-rex tooth. I thought that after owning a piece of Mars named Zagami, I would be damned happy and stop the illusion of owning more, for I’ve reached the pinnacle of my interest.
“Zagamis” carry a tag of US$1,000/gram, far outrunning gold in value. Buying two grams of the Zagami meteorite was a big decision to make; it’s what separates a meteorite connoisseur from the casual astronomer. Owning a Zagami piece was my turning point, unfortunately [sic], to go big time! The price is, with no question, a big burden for any minimum wage earner and it took a huge chunk off my life savings. Recouping the “investment” is almost out of question, but I feel a good sense of pride in owning a piece of Mars! It is far better than having the more common Php90,000 sleeping in my bank account.
Any limit as to how much you would pay for rare meteorites? The benchmark I’ve set in my vocabulary is the limit of US$1,000/gram for a rare, scientifically-important meteorite. No higher—to think that some commercial meteorites are “just stones” picked from the ground and relentlessly hyped to be given a ridiculous price tag and this does not necessarily reflect scientific value. The Sylacauga meteorite commands a whooping US$10,000/gram as it is the only meteorite known to have hit and severely bruised a woman on the hips. It is popular, yes, but it is of the ordinary type.
Meteorites are important only to the informed, sad to say. The market limits itself to the more-informed few. That includes a number of crazy, stone-worshipping people. All that would add up to only about 10,000 to 20,000 collectors around the world. I personally would prefer to settle with common specimens enjoying a stable market price that had their own share of history.
Have you ever gone out on meteorite hunting trips? So far, not yet. I had plans to visit the Bondoc recovery site in the Bondoc peninsula [in Southern Luzon, Philippines], but my colleagues and I still could not pinpoint the exact location of the find, and we still do not have good logistics for the trip. We want to be in contact with the people who were present during, or were witnesses to when the big mesosiderite was plucked out of the jungle to be shipped to Dr. Harvey Nininger (1959).
Are there any meteorite impact sites in the Philippines you have seen? None yet. The vegetation discourages good identification of impact sites in our country.
What is your opinion on local research being done on Philippine tektites? As far as I am concerned, the research stopped when Henry Otley Beyer published his books on the study of tektites. Occasionally, there are Internet links to tektites but most are written by casual hobbyists who are just happy to own a tektite and write something about it. Still, I’ve known foreign collectors who adore Philippine tektites and have written more technical content. But the theories are still generalized and knowledge of these black, glassy rocks come more from research abroad rather than from local ones.
The fact that tektites are still referred to as “meteorites” by local dealers betrays the amount of understanding we had. Our National Museum does not present enough from its collection, but I know of a local dealer who has had field days selling absolute beauties that completely blew me away. This dealer had sold tens or hundreds of kilos of tektites to the tune of at least Php1.5M (US$31,250), to just one foreign collector. I know the good stuff are going out of the country by sacks, perhaps even by the ton, and their exportation is not even regulated.
FYI: meteorites are not listed in the Customs Handbook, and there is no basis to apply duties/taxes on them. But the recovery story of the Bondoc meteorite had reportedly involved red-taped negotiations between the local government and the shipper.
What is your own hypothesis on the origin of the Australasian tektites? I am not qualified to comment on this, since tektites are not my specialty. I have very little interest on tektites, since they are abundant here, and it is very easy to take them for granted. My interest and studies are biased towards meteorites.
What advice can you give to people who would wish to collect and trade meteorites? Research, study, and look for the seal of authenticity. You can browse through the Internet to know the most popular and credible dealers. Subscribe to forums. The meteorite collecting fraternity is a small community worldwide, and once you get the knack of it, you will know you are in the right place. Avoid ebayers with questionable ratings. Ask questions, and look behind the curtain of the dealer you intend to buy from.
There is an international organization that caters to the honest and authentic trading of meteorites: the International Meteorite Collectors Association (IMCA), of which I am a member. It has also become the authority of authenticity and confidence in the trade of meteorites, which means you can be assured that you are buying genuine stuff from its members. Most specimens, if not all, are simply circulating around this small community worldwide.
Meteorites are not produced, they are simply bought, kept in collection, and when the owner can’t stand the sight of it in his/her collection any longer, sells it back into the market. Bigger or rarer specimens may be cut to serve a wider audience. If possible, seek provenance up to the 3rd degree. IMCA dealers usually offer their personalized specimen card for every item they sell. This alone would suffice. IMCA members are honest. They do not sell fakes or specimens intended to mislead or fool the buyer.
How can a fascination for meteorites help in promoting interest in science? It opens up the universe to us, literally. Each specimen carries a story from space down to earth. If the specimen’s fall is well documented, we can recount its former orbit by studying its trajectory. To talk about meteorites you have to retell the story of the specimen, and that is a great educational tool wherever you go. Sure we can talk about dinosaurs, their sizes, their habitats and habits, but if I show you now a Spinosaurus tooth and say that this carnivore is bigger and more terrifying than the T-rex, would that not spice up the discussion even more?
The specimen at hand is the key for better science appreciation. Nobody wants a replica. Geology is the most qualified course we have in our country where you can directly get involved in the study of meteorites. I remember seeing a geology teacher gape in awe at the sight of my meteorite books/magazines and specimens, and I knew very well she appreciated them very much. I would encourage geology students to give the same respect to meteorites the way they study earth rocks. Through the study of meteorites, geologists can reconstruct the story on how they formed; determine the minerals they contain—all of which point to the formation of the planets in our Solar System.
If astronomers study things from afar without holding them, meteorites land a piece of what they study into your own microscope. How would you prefer it?
ANNOUNCEMENT by ALLEN YU: I'll be having a meteorite display at the Manila Planetarium come June opening of classes [2009]. There you will find the biggest Sikhote-Alin and Canyon Diablo specimens in my collection. Also included are lovely desert meteorites with black fusion crusts from the Sahara.
I have a consignment of the most popular specimens in Hobbes and Landes' 4 branches: Greenbelt 5, Greenhills Promenade, Bonifacio High Street at the Fort, and Rockwell. If you are interested on not-so-common types, do feel free to email me at allen_yu70@yahoo.com, or allen_yu70@hotmail.com
If you look at the Moon, you will see how much it's surface is cratered. Some of these craters are caused by meteoroids and small asteroids that have impacted the surface. But the picture above is not of the Moon. It's somewhere closer to home. In fact, it is home.
Unknown to many people, the Earth has also been subject to the bombardment of space rocks in the past and most recently in Peru (more links at the end of this post) such that it also has many craters. But unlike on the Moon, which has no atmosphere, less erosion, and geological changes, the craters on Earth have gone through upheavals and changes that have left them diminished, except for a few like the Wolf crater in Arizona.
This diagram of Asia (left) shows the general distribution of craters made by asteroids that have impacted in the past. It is from the Earth Impact Database, which documents impact sites all over the world. It is interesting to note that most countries in Asia, including the Philippines are not marked. Does this mean there are no impact sites in those places? Possibly. But it is also possible that they haven't been found yet.
The Philippines also has numerous tektites scattered in what is called strewn fields. There is a number of ideas about the origin of tektites, and one of them is the asteroid-impact theory.
Philippine tektites have been associated to geological events as far away as the Zhamanshin crater in Kazakhstan (left). But this is only a theory. The source of the Philippine tektites, the dark, glassy rocks used as amulets by locals, is still pretty much a matter of debate. It is possible that they came from a much closer, even local, source. The latest studies point to an Indochina crater.
I tried using Google Earth to look for impact sites in the Philippines. I managed to find circular structures, but most of these have definite volcanic origins, like the perfectly round lakes in San Pablo, Laguna and Quezon province (below). However, there is one structure in the big island of Luzon that is sizable enough to be noticed and it looks like a crater (top).
This landscape ring structure is in the province of Pangasinan and while it appears to be relatively flat, it is nevertheless outlined by a river system much like the Manicouagan crater in Canada, shown here from a space shuttle photograph (left). However, this crater is much larger and has a broader waterway.
The Pangasinan Ring, though small, has tree-lined river banks and rice fields that define a circular structure, making it more distinct from above with a whitish outline. A smaller ring is at the upper left corner. If you look closely, you will also see a road that bisects the "parent" ring. In the middle is a town where a grove of trees south of the long building with the blue roof, mark the very center (below).
The strange landscape feature is very easy to miss at ground level, and may not even be apparent from an aircraft flying at 30,000 feet. But it is very visible from outer space and an astronaut in orbit would readily see it.
Is it an ancient dried up lake? Is it an extinct volcanic basin? Is it an impact site that's been missed all these years? Is it the source of the tektites (left, from the alvinwriter collection) that are plentiful in Bicol region, further south? Perhaps it's just an odd landscape formation with nothing to it but the quirky path of the rivers?
Rocel Pereira, a remote sensing specialist, says its possible that the area inside the ring is of a higher elevation than the land outside. "Notice, that the area inside the ring is well vegetated," she says. "But my inference is only based on Google Earth. My suggestion is to check out the elevation and contours in the area using topographic maps, which can be purchased from the National Mapping and Resource Information Agency (NAMRIA)."
The Earth Impact Database has set criteria for determining if a structure that resembles a crater is an asteroid impact site or not. Included here are shatter cones, multiple planar deformation features in minerals, the presence of high pressure mineral polymorphs, the existence of an impact melt sheet or dikes, and the presence of pseudotachylyte and breccias.
The Pangasinan Ring can only be classified as an impact site if many of the criteria for authenticating a crater-like geological structure are found there. The findings will also need to be verified by experts. While intriguing to think and speculate about, it is likely that this landscape feature is not an impact site, as suggested by Pereira's initial impressions. But if you have a personal opinion or a clue as to what this strange structure is, feel free to comment. It would be interesting to know what people think. If you like, you can even view and study the Pangasinan Ring yourself using Google Earth. You can download the program here.
Swedish sailor Fredrick Franson first came upon what looked like a great desert in the middle of the ocean in Home Reef. “We looked out, and in front of us it was as if there was no more sea,” he said. “It was like the Sahara, with rolling hills of sand as far as the eye could see.” But the yacht he was on, the Maiken, wasn't anywhere near land. The "desert" he was describing was actually a "sea" of floating pumice stones. Some distance away was an underwater volcano erupting and giving birth to a new island. “Then we saw a black pillar shooting up into the air, and we understood that it had to be a volcano.” He described the island as a "kind of a smoldering, smoky stuff. It looked like coal, and when there was an eruption, we could see the new material piling up on it.” Franson reported the discovery and scientists immediately had satellites zooming in on the new island as it was being born. It was the first time that such an island birth was studied in detail. When volcanologist Scott Bryan personally visited the site, he saw that the island was gone, as it was made up only of deposited material that easily washed away. The life of the island lasted only a few months. Bryan believes that a high sea mount was all that's left of it. The pumice stones left behind by the eruption became home to animals like barnacles that hitch a ride as they float to wherever the ocean currents would take them.
In Bernardo O'Higgins National Park in Magallanes, Chile, a 2-hectare glacial lake has disappeared in what appears to be another case of global warming. The whole body of water simply seemed to evaporate in a span of two months. The discovery was made in late May by park rangers who were shocked to find a huge crater where the lake had been. No, it's not the Silver Surfer's fault. Geologists have concluded, after some deliberation, that melting glacial ice caused the lake's level to swell, putting more pressure on a glacial dam which eventually gave way. It makes us wonder how other bodies of water will fare in these times of warming.
Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old and just a billion years after it took the form of a real planet, structures that resemble upside down egg cartons and broad ice cream cones began to form in the first bodies of water. Some of these formations are still intact today, and geologists have argued and toyed with theories on what formed them.
This is an aquarium designed for dinosaur shrimp, otherwise known as triops. They have been in existence on Earth for 350 million years and their eggs, which come with the aquarium package, easily hatch just by adding water! Take a tour far, far back in time with is Star Wars planet Naboo theme aquarium. Click here or on the image to place your order!
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