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Path: utzoo!utcs!lsuc!msb
From: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.jokes.d,net.astro,net.space
Subject: nickel
Message-ID: <1164@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Mar-86 16:44:28 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.1164
Posted: Fri Mar 28 16:44:28 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Mar-86 17:24:32 EST
References: <1180@udenva.UUCP> <12158@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <3352@hplabsb.UUCP> <2610@genat.UUCP> <6538@utzoo.UUCP>
Reply-To: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 21
Keywords: money
Xref: utcs net.jokes.d:1587 net.astro:1509 net.space:5983
Summary: 

Going off on a tangent to something in net.jokes, we find:

> > ....100% pure Canadian-mined nickel, mostly mined in Sudbury
> > (you know the one:  the acid fumes from the smelters have devistated
> > the land around the town so badly that Apollo astronauts came here to
> > test the lunar rover, because the area so resembled the dead surface
> > of the moon).  

Henry Spencer remarked:
> Yes, but for reasons having nothing to do with acid fumes.  The Apollo
> astronauts trained at Sudbury because the Sudbury basin is strongly
> suspected to be a meteorite crater.  The barrenness of the landscape was
> irrelevant, although this misunderstanding was so prevalent that the
> mayor of Sudbury (among others) took offense.

But he left out the interesting part.  The nickel comes from the meteorite.
Something like 70-80% of the world's total supply of nickel comes from
this one meteorite!  [I can't find where I read this, but I suspect that
it refers to the total of nickel that has been mined rather than reserves.]

Mark Brader