Hello Paleoposse! My name is Ryan Brown and I’m one of the newest victims bloggers here at the Paleocave. I made an appearance on Episode 134 where I talked a bit about meteorites and the asteroid mining company, Planetary Resources. I blog over at Glacial Till where, confusingly enough, I do not actually talk about glaciers. Most of my blogging centers around meteorites, planetary science, and some geology. I have no plans on abandoning my own blog, so keep your eyes open for cross-posts between the two sites.

A little about myself: I’m an undergrad in my senior year at Portland State University where I’m majoring in Earth Science with a minor in Space and Planetary Science. While keeping up with my normal classes, I can also be found doing independent research at the Cascadia Meteorite Lab on campus. I’ve been there since I was a freshman learning about the wild world of meteorites and it’s finally culminating in two co-authored papers (one that’s in peer review and the other being written) and a rather unhealthy addiction to space rocks and caffeine. And somewhere in all that, I’ve managed to squeeze in time to lead the skeptic group on campus.

So, why meteorites? What makes this relatively niche science so fascinating? In short, meteorites are the left over building blocks of the solar system. They are to meteoriticists (a person that studies meteorites) what fossils are to paleontologists. They allow us to understand how planets formed and evolved out of the great chemical cloud that swirled around the young protosun 4.5 billion years ago.

Continue reading Of Meteorites and Men →