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New deep sediment recovery

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On 19 September 2022, I went for a new sediment recovery. The goal is to find micrometeorites in these sediments. This time I decided (or I tried) to make it easier, and funnier. I went using my canoa, directly from the shore next to my home. The place where I live is extremely windy and the sea is normally wavy with a lot of current. And I like it. But for recovering sediments, this is not helpful. I had to wait for a very calm day. On 19 September 2022, the weather was perfect for this purpose. No wind, no wave. Here, this only happens a few days each year. The place where I decided to go is: 27.8658 N -15.3604 W. This is 2.5 km away from an hostil shore, and 3.0 km away from the place where I can put my canoa into the water. Here is a depth profile of the place. The depth was about -75m so I could use a kind of enhanced fishing rod with reel, and a container instead of a hook. This is the picture I took just before I started to recover sediments: The water conditions can change very
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Group of terrestrial spherules

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NOT GOOD ! This is probably the worst you can find while looking for micrometeorites. I found it in the deep sea sediments I recovered. Many micrometeorites have a spherical or aerodynamical shape (if they melted when entering the atmosphere). Most of them also show one or more metal beads. So finding a particle with spherical shape and metal bead is good. It should be good. But micrometeorites are singles. They were alone in space, they should remain alone on the earth. Finding a group of 2 or more micrometeorites means these are just not micrometeorites. I found this group of spherules with metal beads which would have been good candidates if they were alone. Y have no idea which terrestrial phenomenon on the earth produced these nice imposters . But this is disappointing as this reduces the probability other glassy candidates with a metal bead  I found  are extraterrestrial. The need of a (complex) chemical analysis is now higher.
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Chloridric Acid for cleaning Calcium Carbonate deposits on micrometeorites candidates

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The particles I find in the sediments from the deep water sometimes look like "dirty". I wondered if this could be a layer of calcium carbonate. 1500 meters deep is quite above the Calcium Carbonate Compensation Depth (CCD). T he water is oversaturated in disolved calcium carbonate and this leads to a slow precipitation at the bottom. A possible solution would be cleaning the micrometeorites candidates with chloridric acid in low concentration. Fortunately the Calcium Carbonate reacts strongly with any acid and produces carbon  dioxide (gas) and dissolved calcium chloride. Here is a first attempt. I see part of the yellowish deposit is actually Calcium Carbonate but it is not only that. Between the strips of this possibly barred olivine micrometeorite, the yellowish/brownish color is apparently not Calcium Carbonate.
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New devices to find more Micrometeorites.

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The deep sea sediments I recovered at -1500m do contain very nice micrometeorites. But not many. So it is important to use the right equipment in order to be effective when looking for MM. Here are some new devices I have made. An extremely powerful (and dangerous) magnet is kept only a few millimeters above the sediments to select only magnetic particles. I also made some tools to help me to check all magnetic particle with the microscope. Here are the results: Pretender one Pretender two According to their shape and texture, one of these is a nice micrometeorite from the space. The other one is only a pretender, probably an impostor. Would you spot them? You can answer below. Your knowledge in this matter (if any) is welcome. By the way, I would like to recommend a nice and instructive video about what NOT to do when discarding an imposter. Enjoy. Please feel free to share this post on social media if you liked it.
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A machine selecting spherules from deep sea sediments

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I am working on a machine that could select spherical micro particles from deep sea sediments. It is based on a inclined vibrating plane on which the spherical particles are rolling down. After a few adjustments it seems it works quite good. This picture is a sample of non magnetic particles selected by the machine. I think these spheres are from animal kingdom. Maybe eggs. The drawback of the machine is it also discards many spherules. That would be unacceptable working on dust from urban roofs. But the deep sea sediments, even if difficult to recover, are virtually infinite. Once one find a way to recover deep sea sediments, discarding part of them should not be much problem. Here is a good micrometeorite pretender I found using the machine for the first time on real unchecked sediments (it is translucid): I also find this weird twin that is very probably terrestrial. Opinions on the machine and on the micrometeorites pretenders are welcome. Thanks, Gauthier
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Spherical micro particle rolling down an inclined plane

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  I have no idea of the origin of this little spherical particle. It is not visible on the picture but it is translucid. It took me long to understand the "magical light and flares" is due to bubbles inside the translucid material. Yes, this comes from the sea bottom, at -1500m. Supposing it has an extraterrestrial origin, I think the bubbles would be due to evaporation of metals during its entrance in the high atmosphere. But this may simply have a terrestrial origin. I will send it to for a SEM analysis if possible. Interesting information: This is the first spherical particle I find by mechanical properties of a sphere: I noticed it was rolling better and faster than other particles, I picked it up, check it with the microscope and... yeh! I designed a "micrometeorite finder" or at least a "spherical particle" finder. Just a prototype so far. It uses an inclined aluminum plane with a small motor below transmitting a vibration. Actually I am not happy wi
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News from -1500m

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I am still working on the sediments I recovered from the deep sea bottom, at -1500 m deep. A few days ago I extracted some magnetic particles with a magnet, I look through the microscope and I saw quite a few interesting things. Today I took some pictures of the particles. Some particles, with spherical shapes are translucid but I could not show this on a picture. I need to improve my set up to do so. So I discarded the translucid ones and took pictures of others. Here they are. This one is a nice barred olivine Micrometeorite. It looks like MM 340 from the book "In the search of Stardust" by Jon Larsen. Notice it is surprisingly not weathered despite it is coming from the sea bottom. Unfortunately this one is probably not a Micrometeorite. First it is too big. The shape is too spherical. I cannot see any detail suggesting it is a MM. But there are very few spherical particles in the sediments I recovered, so it would be interesting to analyze this despite it does not actuall
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