A large meteorite from the Far North.

This morning we woke up to blue skies, sunshine, and very little wind – great weather for searching for meteorites, as long as yesterday’s snow didn’t bury them. We started off the day collecting a few meteorites that we had previously flagged in the “Klondike moraine”. Then we continued on to an area that we’ve been calling “The Far North” (which is a bit of an oxymoron for a field site at 85 degrees south!). The Far North ice field lies north of the “The Big Tongue” and has not been systematically searched in previous seasons, so we’ve had great luck finding some big meteorites out there. We had similar luck today, with the identification of several nice baseball-sized meteorites. The large meteorites are always exciting, and it’s fun to grasp them in the tongs, get a good look at the interior of the meteorite, and hear the happy plop of a big sample being carefully placed in a large Teflon bag. These larger samples will enable more analyses, so it’s a good day for science when we find them.

We also searched a trough between two moraines, to the east of the tip of the Big Tongue, where we had previously found some meteorites but didn’t find much there today. Though I successfully convinced the team to finally take a group photo in the field. Can you tell who is who in Big Red? We’ve learned to see the subtle differences in our boots, goggles and snow pants to tell each other apart even when we’re covered head to toe!

Team photo against a backdrop of Mt. Ward, near one of our moraine search areas. Top row from left to right: Brian, Jim, Daniela, Robert. Bottom row: Lauren, Erin, Jon, and Minako.

In the afternoon we did another sweep of The Far North ice field, and then circled back to the wind rows that we’ve been working in for a few days. Unfortunately the snow had completely buried them! The landscape looked very different than it had just a few days prior, and the well-sorted and organized wind rows were mostly covered with snow. After a lot of searching we were able to find a few more meteorites, but it was far more difficult than it had been.

Tomorrow we’re expecting the resupply flight (if the weather holds), so we have some preparation to do to organize gear, groom the runway, and take inventory of all of the meteorites we’ve collected so far so we can send them back to McMurdo on the flight. We’re looking forward to sending back nearly 200 meteorites, and continuing to find new ones!

-Lauren from the north part of southern Davis-Ward icefields.