Dick Pugh (left) with Meteoritical Society president Ed Scott, at the MetSoc meeting in New York in July 2010 , a couple days before Dick was notified that he will be recieving the Society's Service Award (see August 2011 item with links below).	Niina Jamsja (center) being presented with a certificate as part of her Oregon Space Grant award. The presenter (on the left) is Marvin Kaiser, the former Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at PSU, and the person on the right is Gerald Recktenwald, the Chair of the Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department at PSU.

  Of note

• December, 2012-- CML Director Alex Ruzicka received formal notification the day after Christmas that his NASA research proposal to study the petrogenesis of inclusions in ordinary chondrites was selected for funding.  This proposal ("The origin of large, igneous-textured in ordinary chondrites") is for 3 years of research and involves a team of international collaborators.  

• November, 2012-- In this MP3 file, listen to Alex chat with KPSU's Tara and Jeremy about the Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory, the Curiosity Mars rover, earthquakes, and the end of the world as we know it. 

• May, 2012-- CML curator Melinda Hutson wins the Sigma Xi Supporter of Research Award for 2012, in recognition for her efforts at promoting science research. 

• April, 2012-- CML Director Alex Ruzicka received formal notification that his proposal to obtain planetary major equipment was selected for funding by NASA.  This proposal, "Acquisition of an Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) System for the Zeiss Sigma SEM at Portland State University" will facilitate research on meteorites and will be useful for a variety of other applications.  The equipment will become part of the CEMN facility at Portland State University. 

• August, 2011-- CML member Dick Pugh received the Service Award of the Meteoritical Society at the 2011 MetSoc meeting in Greenwich, England. This award "honors members who have advanced the goals of the Society to promote research and education in meteoritics and planetary science in ways other than by conducting scientific research."  Click here for the citation and here for the presentation made by Alex Ruzicka.  In 2011, Dick also received the Duane Marshall Special Service to Education Award from the Oregon Science Teachers Association and was recognized as a Sigma Xi Distinguished Member. 

• March, 2011-- PSU and CML student Niina Jamsja won an Honorable Mention for the Stephen E. Dwornik Planetary Geoscience Undergraduate Student Award for her poster at the 42nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference entitled "Presence of hydrous phases in two R chondrites, Northwest Africa 6491 and 6492", presented with Alex Ruzicka. 

• July, 2010-- CML Director Alex Ruzicka received formal notification that his proposal for an outreach program was selected for funding by NASA.  This proposal ("Meteorites on the Road II: Expanding NASA outreach in the Pacific Northwest") will continue to support CML member Dick Pugh in his travelling roadshow of meteorites for three more years and will fund other outreach activities. 

• April, 2010-- PSU and CML student Niina Jamsja won an Honorable Mention for the 2009 Nininger Award for her paper with Alex Ruzicka on NWA 4859, an unusual metamorphosed chondrite melt breccia.  Niina was recognized because, as an undergraduate, her work represented a high level of research.  This paper was  published recently [Jamsja, N. and A. Ruzicka (2010) Shock and thermal history of NWA 4859, an annealed impact-melt breccia of LL-chondrite parentage containing unusual igneous features and pentlandite. Meteorit. Planet. Sci. 45, 828-849.] For more on the Nininger award, see http://meteorites.asu.edu/nininger .

• March, 2010-- PSU and CML student Niina Jamsja was awarded an Undergraduate Research Scholarship from the Oregon Space Grant Consortium to recognize achievement in meteorite research with advisor Alex Ruzicka (see photo above). Niina plans to utilize her scholarship monies for new research on some unclassified and interesting samples in the CML collection. 

• February, 2010-- CML Director Alex Ruzicka received formal notification that his research proposal to study shock effects in ordinary chondrites was selected for funding by NASA.  This proposal ("Shock histories of chondrites as revealed by combined microstructural (TEM), petrographic, and X-ray microtomography  (µCT) analysis") is for three years of research with Co-Investigators Rick Hugo (Geology department, PSU) and Jon Friedrich (Fordham University). 

 

  Press releases

September 17, 2010 -- Oregon's sixth meteorite, named Fitzwater Pass,
is discovered to be a rare type of iron

May 29, 2010 -- Portland State University researchers report the discovery
of Morrow County, Oregon's fifth official meteorite

December 22, 2008 -- Meteorite bounty on track for Canadian record

  CML newsletters

• No. 6 (August 2012)

• No. 5 (September 2011)

• No. 4 (June 2010)

• No. 3 (June 2009)

• No. 2 (June 2008)

• No. 1 (April 2007)