Recently my first paleomagnetic paper got published. This study is very special to me for many reasons. It marks my debut in paleomagnetism. It is my first time to study a meteorite. It took a lot of time and effort to even get started as I had to send a ton of emails and contact a ton of people to obtain the necessary samples. It happened during covid, with many museums and universities closed and the curators unable to access their collections.
The results were deeply disappointing: we found that all samples from all paired stones that we managed to collect, samples of the most ancient Martian meteorite available on Earth, had their magnetic records completely overwritten on Earth by hand magnets. We considered calling it a day and forgetting about it. After all, the risk was known: meteorite hunters use hand magnets to identify meteorites, especially hot desert finds. We knew we were searching for a needle in a haystack. But then we thought we should let people know. Meteorite hunters, collectors, curators but also scientists, our colleagues. This should change. There are alternatives: affordable, hand-held susceptibility meters do a far better job in identifying and classifying meteorites than hand magnets. So, we wrote it up.
I am grateful for the support and encouragement we received from JGR-Planets editors and reviewers to expand what was initially a compact commentary into a full article and for the editors’ decision to highlight our study in Eos. Science covered our study in print and many popular science media outlets reported about it. I hope that everyone involved in this study and its dissemination planted a seed that will grow into meteorites with pristine magnetic records.
https://eos.org/editor-highlights/hand-magnets-destroy-the-magnetic-record-of-meteorites
https://news.mit.edu/2023/simple-hand-magnets-erase-meteorite-magnetic-memory-0420
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/bad-news-magnets-and-meteorites/
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/magnets-meteorites-space