Monday, October 16, 2006

Kryptonite?

File under: "Life imitates ... comics?" OK, so it didn't happen in, say, Smallville. But you still have to love a story about finding a "rare" meteorite in Kansas.

Rare meteorite found in Kansas field By ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press Writer
AP Photo: Workers pull dirt away from a 154-pound meteorite as a team from the Houston Museum...

GREENSBURG, Kan. - Scientists located a rare meteorite in a Kansas wheat field thanks to new ground-penetrating radar technology that someday might be used on Mars. The dig Monday was likely the most documented excavation yet of a meteorite find, with researchers painstakingly using brushes and hand tools to preserve evidence of the impact trail and to date the event of the meteorite strike. Soil samples also were bagged and tagged and organic material preserved for dating purposes.

[ Full Story ]

Now, before you start combing rural Kansas for Kents, you should know that "scientific experts at the site were able to debunk prevailing wisdom that the spectacular Brenham meteorite fall occurred 20,000 years ago. Its location in the Pleistocene epoch soil layer puts that date closer to 10,000 years ago." But according to Carolyn Sumners, director of Astronomy at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, "Native Americans could have seen it." Hmmm... might be fodder for a decent Elseworlds storyline.

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