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Antarctica - Part 1

Smithsonian Contributions to the Earth Sciences, Number 23

Catalog of Antarctic Meteorites, 1977-1978

Editors' Introduction

Ursula B. Marvin and Brian Mason

Excerpts from pages 1 and 2:

In December 1969, a Japanese expedition found nine meteorites on a
bare-ice area about 5 x 10 km at the southeastern end of the Yamato
Mountains in East Antarctica (near 72°S, 36°E). Subsequent collecting in
this small area resulted in the recovery of almost 1000 meteorites.
Since the collection included a variety of meteorite types, this
occurrence could not be explained as the fragmentation of a single large
meteorite. Clearly, some concentrating mechanism had been operative in
the Antarctic, since similar meteorite concentrations have never been
observed elsewhere. To test this hypothesis, in mid-1975 W.A. Cassidy of
the University of Pittsburgh proposed to the National Science Foundation
(NSF) a search for meteorites on the icecap in Victoria Land, which is
accessible from the United States McMurdo Station. Edward Olsen of the
Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago independently planned a
similar proposal. As a result, in 1976-77 the NSF Division of Polar
Programs supported a joint expedition by Cassidy and Olsen, which was
joined by K. Yanai of the National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo.
During the period 15 December 1976 to 20 January 1977, this party
collected 10 meteorites from the icecap on the inland side of the
Transantarctic Mountains in Victoria Land.
The success of this expedition, which proved that the Yamato Mountains
discovery was not unique but was likely to be repeated at other suitable
areas on the Antarctic icecap, prompted extensive discussions among
interested scientists as to the best procedures for exploiting this
unexpected windfall of extraterrestrial material. Cassidy initiated
these discussions at the annual meeting of the Meteoritical Society in
Cambridge, England, in July 1977. In November 1977, the NSF convened an
ad hoc committee of representatives from the NSF, the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Smithsonian Institution
(SI), and the scientific community. As a result of this committee
meeting, a plan was drawn up for the collection, processing, and
distribution of Antarctic meteorites collected during the 1977-78 field
season. This plan provided for the meteorites to be collected and
returned to the United States, as far as possible in their pristine
condition (in continuously below-freezing temperatures). They were to be
initially stored and processed at the NASA Johnson Space Center under
conditions similar to those used for lunar samples.


Best regards,

Bernd

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