The proceeds of a 47 meteorite day
2 Days left in the season and this my first and last blog so I thought I would give you ANSMET by the numbers, a kind of primer on the program and generally fun factoids concerning our mission!
1912 Year that the first meteorite was found in Antarctica, by Mawson’s Australian Antarctic Expedition.
9 Number of meteorites found by JARE-10 (Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition) in 1969. Among the nine were several different petrographic types which led the Japanese to note there was a possible concentration mechanism at work in the Antarctic ice.
1976 Year that Bill Cassidy of the US founded ANSMET, and the annual search expedition has continued every year (save for one) to the present.
20700 Total number of meteorites collected by ANSMET to the present. This number is not corrected for paired specimens, i.e., those meteorites which are chemically indistinguishable from one another and thus presumably came from a larger parent meteorite that broke into pieces after entering Earth’s atmosphere.
331 Number of meteorites collected by the team this year. The most meteorites collected by ANSMET in one season is about 1200.
11,000 to 1,000,000 Terrestrial ages in years of meteorites from the Allan Hills in Antarctica. The terrestrial age of a meteorite begins when the meteorite enters Earth’s atmosphere and subsequently lands on Earth. Some Antarctic specimens have terrestrial ages as old as 5 million years!
44X How much longer meteorites from the Allan Hills in Antarctica last on Earth as compared with meteorites from the western US. It’s true that Antarctic meteorites are preserved in the ice and protected from the ravages of weathering that goes on in more temperate climates.
18000 Pounds of gear this year’s team took into the field. This includes snowmobiles, fuel, food, sleep tents, science tent, poo tent, personal gear, flags, science gear, collection materials, etc., a lot of stuff!
11/13 Number of days spent working versus total days available for work in the field this year. That’s pretty good since ANSMET regularly has seasons where 50% of possible work days are lost due to inclement weather, i.e., high winds, poor contrast/visibility, blowing snow, or fresh snow covering blue ice areas where meteorites are.
1 Pounds of butter per tent (two people) per week; this is the recommended amount to be consumed in the field by ANSMET personnel. We fry everything in butter!
-1 What score an ANSMET team member gets for mistakenly claiming a terrestrial rock is a meteorite. For example, Steve received a minus one from the rest of the team when he claimed that piece of shiny, tan, round till was a meteorite!
Ok, that’s about it for today- next up on our mission is packing up and pulling out!
See ya next year,
-posted by Jim (editing by rph)
An editorial note from Jani: All the girls of camp thank Manavi’s mother for her amazing steak vindaloo recipe – it was a hit!