Edward Olsen
The Field Museum curator who joined William Cassidy on the first American meteorite search in Antarctica in 1976.
Key facts
- Nationality
- American
- Field
- Mineralogist and curator
Edward J. Olsen was curator of mineralogy at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, home to one of the largest meteorite collections in the United States. He studied the minerals of meteorites, especially iron meteorites and the rare phosphate and silicate minerals they contain, and described several new minerals.
In December 1976 Olsen joined William Cassidy and Keizo Yanai on the first American search for meteorites in Antarctica, in the Transantarctic Mountains of Victoria Land. Working from tents in bitter cold, the small team showed that the blue ice there held many meteorites, just as Japanese teams had found near the Yamato Mountains. In the following seasons at the Allan Hills they recovered hundreds.
Olsen's experience as a curator was valuable in setting up how the meteorites were handled. Antarctic meteorites are collected in clean bags without being touched by hand and kept frozen until they reach a laboratory, so that they are not contaminated by Earth. The American finds are stored and described at NASA's Johnson Space Center and the Smithsonian Institution and offered to scientists around the world.
Olsen also wrote widely for the public about minerals and meteorites. His part in the first Antarctic searches helped start a programme that has transformed meteorite science.