Named for Frank Asaro, nuclear chemist at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory of the University of California. With his colleagues Luis and Walter Alvarez {see planet  (3581)} and Helen Michel, he discovered the global noble metal anomaly at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, which is now accepted as evidence for impact of a large comet or asteroid. He also discovered noble metal anomalies in late Eocene and Miocene strata that are thought to indicate other major impacts related to the mass extinction of species. (M 17657) _ _.