{"id":403,"date":"2013-08-14T18:15:26","date_gmt":"2013-08-14T18:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artscilabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/?p=403"},"modified":"2014-11-12T16:48:41","modified_gmt":"2014-11-12T21:48:41","slug":"report-on-the-2012-2013-field-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/2013\/08\/14\/report-on-the-2012-2013-field-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Report on the 2012-2013 field season"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

One of the star specimens from 2012-2013, a large carbonaceous chondrite<\/p><\/div>\n

Talk about poorly kept promises! \u00a0 The 2012-2013 field season has been over for more than 6 months and today, \u00a0Long ago I said I’d post a summary of the results from that season, \u00a0and finally, \u00a0here it is.<\/p>\n

We definitely had a successful season, \u00a0but not quite what the pre-season plans would have suggested.\u00a0 Two parties went into the field as planned and on schedule, and you can read their day-to-day exploits in the previous posts. \u00a0But to summarize, \u00a0 a 4-person reconnaissance party went to some promising sites in the most southerly reaches of the Transantarctic Mountains, while an 8-person systematic searching team went to the Larkman Nunataks and the icefields adjacent to Mts Cecily, Emily and Raymond in the Grosvenor Mountains. The recon team recovered meteorites from two previously visited icefields near the Klein Glacier landing site and a previously unvisited site in the Graves Nunatak region; but as they moved to sites along the upper Robison Glacier,\u00a0 the weather stopped cooperating.\u00a0 At one stage they endured the longest weather-related work-stoppage in ANSMET’s 37 year history, a full 14 days.\u00a0 It wasn’t all about snow and wind,\u00a0 either;\u00a0 warmer than usual weather in the McMurdo Sound region meant the Pegasus runway was too soft for use by wheeled aircraft,\u00a0 meaning the US Antarctic Program’s ski-equipped aircraft (LC-130’s and Twin Otters) had to do double duty,\u00a0 bringing cargo from the civilized world as well as supporting activities in the field and at remote stations.\u00a0 Together these factors led to a recon season where we managed to visit less than half of the sites we had hoped for,\u00a0 and the total number of meteorite recoveries was correspondingly low-\u00a0 only 63 specimens.\u00a0 In the end, success could be measured in the few new sites we knocked off our list of potential targets,\u00a0 but much work remains for us in that part of the Transantarctics.<\/p>\n

The systematic team had much better luck with the weather.\u00a0\u00a0 After a few days of acclimatization at the Mt. Bumstead icefields<\/span>,\u00a0 the team traversed to Larkman Nunatak.\u00a0 The icefields in this area are relatively small, but there’s a challenge hiding at the foot of Larkman Nunatak- a moraine brimming with meteorites.\u00a0 Previous visits to the site emphasized the desire not only to complete searching of the icefields but also to finish a highly-controlled methodical foot search in that moraine.\u00a0 Neanderthals that we are, we even went so far as to try a few new things,\u00a0 like smaller wire-supported flags, battery powered drills for marking paths and finds, and the use of a metal-detector for double-checking.\u00a0 The payoff appears to have been substantial;\u00a0 about 331 specimens total for the season , including many that appear “unusual” and contrary to expectations,\u00a0 of significant size.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The meteorites from the 2012-2013 field season are being characterized right now. First descriptions of ANSMET meteorites are published in the Antarctic Meteorite Newsletter, a new edition of which should be out within the month (visit http:\/\/curator.jsc.nasa.gov\/antmet\/)<\/a>. \u00a0As usual there is a backlog of meteorites from previous seasons that need descriptions, so we can expect that only the top dozen or two from the 2012-2013 field season will be described. \u00a0 But often those first few are the cream of the crop, one of which is shown above. \u00a0So stay tuned……..<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-Ralph Harvey, \u00a0PI of ANSMET<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Talk about poorly kept promises! \u00a0 The 2012-2013 field season has been over for more than 6 months and today, \u00a0Long ago I said I’d post a summary of the results from that season, \u00a0and finally, \u00a0here it is.<\/p>\n

We definitely had a successful season, \u00a0but not quite what the pre-season plans would have suggested.\u00a0 Two parties went into the field as planned and on schedule, and you can read their day-to-day exploits in the previous posts. \u00a0But to summarize, \u00a0 a 4-person reconnaissance party went to some promising sites in the most southerly reaches of the Transantarctic Mountains, while an 8-person systematic searching team went to the Larkman Nunataks and the icefields adjacent to Mts Cecily,<\/p>\n

Continue reading… Report on the 2012-2013 field season<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1482,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions\/1482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caslabs.case.edu\/ansmet\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}