Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology, Richard B. Hoover, Editors, pp.203-216
Date: 6 July 1998
Paper Abstract
Scanning electron microscopy investigations carried out independently in the US and Russia have yielded further evidence of microfossils in meteorites. Numerous complex biomorphic microstructures representing possible microfossils have been found in interior surfaces of freshly broken samples of the Murchison, Orgueil, and Efremovka carbonaceous chondrites. Similar biomorphic forms were not encountered during comparable investigations of the Nikolskoye meteorite. Energy dispersive spectroscopy and link microprobe analysis provides elemental distribution indicating many of the microstructures have a carbon enhancement that is superimposed upon composition of the meteoritic matrix. The in-situ mineralized biomorphic microstructures found embedded in freshly fractured meteoritic surfaces are not considered to be recent surface contaminants.
DOI: 10.1117/12.319839 Current SPIE Digital Library subscribers click here to download this paper.
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