The world of hidden biases: From collection to sample processing

Abstract

Any study of micrometeorites involves a variety of biases, which start right away during their collection, and which have not been suffciently publicized. This section deals with the astonishing folklore of these biases. We shall question whether major differences observed between Antarctic micrometeorites and stratospheric micrometeorites could reflect kinds of complementary biases between the two collections of micrometeorites. Astonishingly, some of them would converge to enrich the SMMs collection in the most fine-grained fluffy dust particles accreted by the Earth. They might be possibly the most primitive material accreted by the Earth. But they would not give a representative sampling of the bulk micrometeorite flux, which is best obtained with the new Concordia micrometeorites collected in central Antarctica. For a change, biases developing around a small metallic plate flying at ∼200m/sec in the stratosphere turned out to be quite helpful! © Springer 2006.