Whence the SNCs? Finding the Source Craters of Meteorites from Mars
Guest Speaker: Chris Herd
RASC Regular Meeting, Monday December 8, 2025
Zeidler Dome, TELUS World of Science Edmonton, 11211 142 St NW Edmonton
7:30 PM (MT): Guest Speaker – Chris Herd
After the Break: Astro-Imaging Corner and more!
FREE and open to the public.
This is a hybrid meeting. You may attend in person, or join remotely using Zoom.
Whence the SNCs? Finding the Source Craters of Meteorites from Mars
Chris Herd, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta
There are currently over 200 distinct rocks from Mars in the form of martian meteorites. These samples are delivered to Earth through impact ejection from the martian surface. Where these rocks come from has been a question ever since they were recognized as being from Mars. Dr. Herd led a recently-published study (Herd et al. 2024, Sci. Adv. 10, eadn2378) in which the results of diverse sets of observations and modeling are combined to constrain the source craters for five groups of the martian meteorites. We conclude that martian meteorites were derived from lava flows within the top 26 m of the surface, and we link the five groups – ejected at the same time from the same crater – to five specific source craters and geologic units. The study has implications for testing remote sensing-based volcanic models, for calibrating the chronology of Mars, and for linking other groups of meteorites – and meteorites yet to be discovered – to specific locations on Mars. In this way, we provide important context for the only samples of Mars available until robotically-collected samples are returned from the Red Planet.
Chris Herd
Christopher (Chris) Herd has had the dream of studying rocks from Mars since the age of 13. After an undergraduate degree in Geological Sciences from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, he studied meteorites from Mars for his PhD at the University of New Mexico, and then worked at the NASA Johnson Space Center. Since 2003 he has been a professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta. His research includes studies of meteorites of a variety of types, as well as ways of curating meteorites and future returned samples under cold and clean conditions. He is the curator of the University of Alberta Meteorite Collection—the largest university-based meteorite collection in Canada, and home to the world’s only meteorite curation facility that operates at cold temperatures. He is a Returned Sample Science participating scientist in the Perseverance rover mission.
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