Meteorite Hunt

The search for meteorites

ANSMET provided a cosmic connection to all the ice endeavors up to this point. The meteorites are found on blue ice. T/his blue ice was sampled and eventually analyzed. The flags that flew on the snowmobile were part of the Blue Ice International flag program connected to Nagano and the Olympics and the Japanese ice and meteorites science programs.

ANSMET Program

ANSMET (Antarctic Search for Meteorites) is a program funded by the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation that looks for meteorites in the Transantarctic Mountains. This geographical area serves as a collection point for meteorites that have originally fallen on the extensive high-altitude ice fields throughout Antarctica. Such meteorites are quickly covered by subsequent snowfall and begin a centuries-long journey traveling “downhill” across the Antarctic continent while embedded in a vast sheet of flowing ice. Portions of such flowing ice can be halted by natural barriers such as the Transantarctic Mountains. Subsequent wind erosion of the motionless ice brings trapped meteorites back to the surface once more where they may be collected. This process concentrates meteorites in a few specific areas to much higher concentrations than they are normally found everywhere else. The contrast of the dark meteorites against the white snow, and lack of terrestrial rocks on the ice, makes such meteorites relatively easy to find. However, the vast majority of such ice-embedded meteorites eventually slide undiscovered into the ocean.

Helicopter support out of McMurdo

FOOD, FUEL, SCIENCE GEAR, TENTS, COOKING GEAR, AND PERSONAL GEAR ARE FLOWN TO THE STARTING POINT

Alan Hills meteorite site

Blue Ice surfaces with low air bubble density, absorbs every other color of the spectrum except blue, so blue is what we see!

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Tree! In Antarctica?

Every day provided a new visual experience, providing personal physical, intellectual expansion. Thinking about a petrified tree trunk located in the Antarctic should allow questions about temperature at this place at the time the tree had leaves, or maybe the tree was growing when the land mass was at a different, latitude.