Alex finding his first meteorite in a wind row, hence the grin! You can see all flags in the wind row where other meteorites were found.

The gang is all here! Brian and Marc arrived this morning, even with grey clouds threatening to turn the plane around inflight (a “boomerang flight” in McMurdo terminology). We’re all thrilled to be officially beginning our work exactly one month since the start of this adventure. Nicole, Alex, and I were reflecting on what a trip this has already been so far on our flight a couple days ago. We’ve done some serious team bonding over our ten days of weather delays in Christchurch and couple of weeks in McMurdo; we feel prepared to spend the next month together, 500 miles away from civilization.

Johnny showing the team a meteorite and explaining identifiable characteristics.

Yesterday afternoon we got a taste of what our next month at Davis Ward will be like. Johnny took us out to two spots where he, Jim, and Brian from McMurdo’s field support center, found some meteorites while they waited for our arrival. The first location was just north of our campsite on the edge of blue ice (exposed raw glacial ice that might be several 100,000s of years old – since this is a prime spot for finding meteorites, we’ll blog about this in more detail later). The second was a wind row (see photo) where new rocks are being exposed – last years team discovered the site and it keeps churning up meteorites as wind-driven material wears away (ablates) the ice. After a little show-and-tell from Johnny, we ended up finding about a dozen meteorites! It’s amazing how fast an hour goes by while you’re on your hands and knees looking for meteorites! We are feeling even more excited for the next month of meteorite hunting!!

-From Lauren and Nicole, in our yellow Scott tent at Davis Ward

Note from RPH:  I am so very happy they’re finally in the field.  A great New Year’s Eve gift!