Unlocking Research Opportunities for Students and the Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory

Poster Session
A
Poster Number
08
Project Author(s)
Jennifer Laster, Nico Morrelli, Dipper Pierce
Institution
Portland State University
Project Description

The purpose of this project was to engage undergraduate students in authentic research through classification of at least two meteorite samples while simultaneously increasing the number of meteorites available by loan from the Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory to other institutions for research on extraterrestrial materials. Each student chose their own meteorites for analysis. Students worked in small groups supervised by faculty and graduate student mentors to operate a petrographic microscope to assess the degree of weathering and shock effects in their meteorites. Students worked with a faculty mentor to acquire electron images and mineral-chemical data on their samples using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Overall, seven samples were identified; six were meteorites, and one was a terrestrial rock that looked very much like a eucritic meteorite. Students are identified as co-classifiers of these new meteorites in the Meteoritical Bulletin Database (https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meteor/), the main classification database used by researchers worldwide.