2014 / 2015 Field Season – Page 2 – ANSMET, The Antarctic Search for Meteorites

a camp — with a landing strip — ready to move out

January 18, 2015

We got the necessary camp duties accomplished yesterday -- e.g., inventorying meteorites, organizing flags, inventorying dehydrated food -- for the redeployment to CTAM. With some more grooming , the landing strip also is now ready to receive aircraft, and we have great weather for it. Image caption: The new Davis-Ward...

A Short Treatise on our Epic Awesome Harcawesomeness!

January 16, 2015

I know yesterday I said I was going to write about why we collect meteorites today. I lied. Turns out I do that kind of a lot. To be fair, I do have a pretty good excuse (this time), namely that I’m tired and it is late. Also, the...

The wind, our best friend and worst enemy

January 16, 2015

Basically, when you want to find a right spot in Antarctica for finding meteorites, you need a place where the ice is vertical (because blocked by an obstacle, like a mountain), and is ablated by wind in order to free all meteorites kept within the ice. So...

resupply and meteorite hunting

January 15, 2015

Today started auspiciously -- with a resupply fight -- which, even though we didn't actually get the resupply items we requested, brought us something even better. . . . We had been waiting several days for our resupply flight, which always seemed to be a backup for another flight. ...

Status Update and “How to collect a meteorite”…

January 15, 2015

Today’s weather dawned cool, clear, and windy (you know, for a change). Luckily the wind had dropped to a borderline value of ~12 mph, just enough to stream some snow across the surface and make us very uncomfortable. On a normal day, we might not have gone out (since...

Collecting Meteorites

January 15, 2015

After two and a half tent days, we are finally out in the field again. It’s still pretty cold (-5° F), but the wind is not quite as strong as it has been (still cold enough though that we went back to camp at lunchtime to warm up a...

Quick Status Report and a Short Essay of the Evils of Snowmobiles…

January 15, 2015

So for the second straight day we are trapped in our tents. Not trapped in our tents in a “trapped by an avalanche” or “scary monster prowling outside” kind of way (unless you count when Johnny walks to the poo tent), but by something far more insidious…the wind! Today...

another tent day . . . with video!

January 13, 2015

IMG_0958_2sec.mov We don't have much new to report -- still waiting for the resuppply flight, and cold winds blowing around the snow are making it virtually impossible to hunt meteorites, so another tent day today. . . . But we have video to document the conditions! The clip is short, but...

why we’re searching for meteorites at Davis-Ward

January 11, 2015

Continued high winds are kicking up lots of snow over the surface. And the winds combined with some colder temperatures (roughly -20 C or around 0 F), the wind chill is down around -30C. So we have another tent day today. I'll use this blog to talk a bit...

Report on our Hard Core Awesomeness and a Short Essay about Antarctic Weather

January 11, 2015

Yesterday was a tent day, and the worst kind of tent day; it was a marginal tent day. That may seem counterintuitive, since very bad weather would seem to make a worse day. See the thing is, inside your tent the weather outside is largely immaterial, thus on a...

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