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Meteorites in the gutter?

lukebl

By lukebl
in The Astro Lounge

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lukebl

lukebl

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Hi all,

Being a lovely day, I was out tidying the garden. I noticed that the water butt had fallen over during the winter, and the mud at the bottom had dried out. I was reminded of this thread from a few years back about the constant rain of micrometeories on the roof. So I collected the mud, but it in a bowl with some water, then waved a magnet around the bottom. Hey, presto. Load of little lumps of iron.

So, are they micrometeorites? They are from the roof a new extension with plastic guttering, so I can't think where any iron could have come from.

16557089809_5cbba4947f_b.jpg

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LeeB

LeeB

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There looks to be some evidence of scorching on them , hard to see on photo, I did similar a couple of years back after a pool had been erected all summer and got like results.

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JamesF

JamesF

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I have some very similar looking stuff in the magnetic material we've collected from our meteorite trap.  It is nigh on impossible to say "yes, that's a meteorite", but equally I'm struggling to see that birds can have taken it all up there.  Perhaps I should try dragging a magnet around the lawn to see how much stuff it picks up.

James

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Gazabone

Gazabone

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I watched a program a few months ago where a chap hosed down his roof and collect the run off into a bucket. Like you, he fished around with a magnet and pulled out similar pieces of iron. He didn't seem in much doubt that they were micrometeorites, so, probably, yes they are. As others have said, the only way to be sure is to get them tested.

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chiltonstar

chiltonstar

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A few years back, I collected similar material from a large plastic sheet I had stretched out in the garden. I analyzed it in the lab I worked in (ICP-AES/ICP-MS) and it was fairly likely to have been meteoritic in origin judging by the composition.

Chris

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JamesF

JamesF

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As I've already said, we have a meteorite trap that I made with my son last year.  It fits on one of our guttering downpipes.  We have a small amount of magnetic material from it, but I've stopped short of saying to anyone thus far that this is "almost certainly meteorite material".  My scepticism stems from a number of considerations:

FIrst, I can't discount the fact that birds dropped the stuff on the roof.  It seems odd that birds should somehow managed to shift lumps of magnetic material onto the roof without there being so much on the ground that pretty much anything ferrous would end up covered in the stuff, but that's a fairly weak argument.

Second, it could be some industrial process putting the stuff in the air.  These days that seems less likely and we're a fair distance from any heavy industry (and in the wrong direction for the prevailing winds) so in my specific situation I'm inclined to discount this one.

Finally, there's the issue of how much meteoritic material is thought to land on the planet.  The upper limit on estimates seems to be 80,000 tonnes per year.  Assuming I've done my maths correctly and that the distribution is even across the entire surface of the planet, that's about 155 grammes per square kilometre each year.  The area of roof feeding my trap (in plan, rather than actual area) is about 65 square metres, or 65 millionths of a square kilometre, suggesting that our actual mass collected per year should be about ten microgrammes and we have far more than that.  Or I've done my maths wrong :D

I think there's good reason to believe that the distribution of "alien" material is not even across the surface of the planet and perhaps might be expected to follow precipitation patterns, but given that we got a few grammes worth of material in less than a year that's still quite a big difference to explain.

On the other hand it has rained a hell of a lot here in the last couple of years :)

James

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JamesF

JamesF

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They could be charcoal embers from the chimney.

I struggle with this as an explanation.  It's certainly something that should be considered, but in our case for example we have wood-burning stoves and I know we don't burn anything magnetic in them.  Just logs, scrap wood from the workshop and paper.  I'm quite careful about nails and suchlike because they're not chainsaw-friendly.  How a lump of material a few millimetres in diameter might get carried up the chimney and dumped on the roof having been magnetised along the way is hard to explain.

James

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LukeSkywatcher

LukeSkywatcher

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I struggle with this as an explanation.  It's certainly something that should be considered, but in our case for example we have wood-burning stoves and I know we don't burn anything magnetic in them.  Just logs, scrap wood from the workshop and paper.  I'm quite careful about nails and suchlike because they're not chainsaw-friendly.  How a lump of material a few millimetres in diameter might get carried up the chimney and dumped on the roof having been magnetised along the way is hard to explain.

James

It is a long shot suggestion. Neighbours may burn all sorts of fuel in their fires. This can collect in surrounding gutters. I cant think of any magnetic material burned in fire places.

I know slag is magnetic. Slag though is a by product of smelting iron?.

Im sure thats not the cause of these gutter stones.

These meteorites could be fossilised bird poop. The birds in question being gulls that come in from the Norfolk coast.

Fish are full of iron and that would make them magnetic.

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Ruud

Ruud

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Could they have formed in place? Like Manganese nodules on the sea floor?

I suppose the iron could originate from bird droppings. Maybe bacteria are involved too, excreting a surplus of iron or so.

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JamesF

JamesF

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It is a long shot suggestion. 

I think you're absolutely right to raise the idea.  We certainly should consider as many possible sources for the material as seem plausible.  If someone were burning coal in their fireplace for instance, it might well be a very reasonable suggestion.

James

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JamesF

JamesF

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Could they have formed in place? Like Manganese nodules on the sea floor?

I suppose the iron could originate from bird droppings. Maybe bacteria are involved too, excreting a surplus of iron or so.

It's an interesting idea, but I'd think lots of people would know about it by know if it were the case.  I'm not sure how long our roof has existed in its present form.  Perhaps a hundred years or thereabouts.  But given the number of houses with much longer histories I'd have thought "iron plating" on the roof  would be known about by now.  Of course it may not even have been possible before the industrial revolution, so there's still a chance...

James

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John

John

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Of the samples that are sent into accredited meteorite testing labs by the general public, worldwide, for analysis each year, of which there are many 100's apparently, less than 1% turns out to be meteoric in origin.

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LukeSkywatcher

LukeSkywatcher

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I think you're absolutely right to raise the idea.  We certainly should consider as many possible sources for the material as seem plausible.  If someone were burning coal in their fireplace for instance, it might well be a very reasonable suggestion.

 20+ yrs ago in Dublin where i lived went smokeless fuel by law. Where i live now has no such laws, but the sane laws are coming in to effect in July.

Brilliant. 

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lukebl

lukebl

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Interesting discussion, folks.

How did you take your photos, Luke?  If I know how to do it properly I'm sure I can get some photos of the stuff we have by way of a comparison.

James

I just used the standard lens on my 700d, with a cheap macro-converter screwed on the front. I'll keep an open mind as to what they are. I'm more inclined to think they're of terrestrial origin, but I've no idea how to test such small samples.
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John

John

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Interesting discussion, folks.

I just used the standard lens on my 700d, with a cheap macro-converter screwed on the front. I'll keep an open mind as to what they are. I'm more inclined to think they're of terrestrial origin, but I've no idea how to test such small samples.

There are a couple of DIY tests described here:

http://meteorite-identification.com/streak.html

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