Today we had a lovely day of meteorite recovery, with warm weather and low winds. We recovered 49 samples, which brings our total to 554 for the season. However, this isn’t the number that we’re concerned with today. Prior to our field deployment. we all made our personal predictions for how many meteorites we might bring home. Although the criteria were modified a few times, we decided that the only ones that would count would be the samples recovered by our entire team of eight. We each wrote our predictions down on a piece of paper that was then sealed with tape and placed in a ziplock bag. The winner was to buy beverages for the rest of the team upon our return to McMurdo. It turns out that Jim just happened to have this bag with him, and although he had marked it as do-not-open-before-Jan-20 we decided that tonight was the night to do the great reveal. To mark the occasion we made pizza in our camp oven. As an eight-person ensemble, we recovered 482 meteorites. With that number in mind, we opened our predictions…and I was PUMPED to learn that I, Newbie Nina Lanza, was the closest in my guess of 472 meteorites. Many others were more optimistic than I was (one guess was for 800+) while only one was more pessimistic. Pessimism FTW! The winner is ME! I hope everyone likes hot Tang because that’s what I’m buying infinite rounds of when we get back!

The sophisticated bid protection device

–Posted by Nina in the Winnners’ Circle, New Sparkle City, south Miller Range, 16 January 2016 Caption: .