Fossil micrometeorites from Monte dei Corvi: Searching for dust from the Veritas asteroid family and the utility of micrometeorites as a palaeoclimate proxy

Suttle, M. D.; Campanale, Fabrizio; Folco, Luigi; Tavazzani, Lorenzo; Meier, M. M. M.; Miller, C. Giles; Hughes, Geraint W.; Genge, M. J.; Salge, T.; Spratt, John; Anand, M.

doi:10.1016/j.gca.2023.06.027

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Due to their limited sizes, fossil micrometeorite collections were not included in the above sections. The effects of weathering and diagenesis severely affect the survival of micrometeorites, however, despite these limitations, cosmic spherules have been found to be frequent in the geological record [39,[112][113][114]. Interestingly, fossil I-type cosmic spherules essentially made of magnetite may resist weathering and preserve primary geochemical information allowing their use as paleoclimatic proxies [115][116][117].…”

Section: The Future Of Micrometeorite Sampling: Implications For the ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Micrometeorite collections: a review and their current status

van Ginneken,

Wozniakiewicz,

Brownlee

et al. 2024

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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Micrometeorites are estimated to represent the main part of the present flux of extraterrestrial matter found on the Earth’s surface and provide valuable samples to probe the interplanetary medium. Here, we describe large and representative collections of micrometeorites currently available to the scientific community. These include Antarctic collections from surface ice and snow, as well as glacial sediments from the eroded top of nunataks—summits outcropping from the icesheet—and moraines. Collections extracted from deep-sea sediments (DSS) produced a large number of micrometeorites, in particular, iron-rich cosmic spherules that are rarer in other collections. Collections from the old and stable surface of the Atacama Desert show that finding large numbers of micrometeorites is not restricted to polar regions or DSS. The advent of rooftop collections marks an important step into involving citizen science in the study of micrometeorites, as well as providing potential sampling locations over all latitudes to explore the modern flux. We explore their strengths of the collections to address specific scientific questions and their potential weaknesses. The future of micrometeorite research will involve the finding of large fossil micrometeorite collections and benefit from recent advances in sampling cosmic dust directly from the air. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Dust in the Solar System and beyond’.

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