[meteorite-list] Robert Scott's rock samples

From: tracy latimer <daistiho_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Mar 21 13:24:57 2005
Message-ID: <BAY102-F155BD154DD3717D16E2158CA480_at_phx.gbl>

I've been processing for our library a bunch of new books, and came across
the account of Scott and Amundsen. Most people know the tragic story of
Robert Scott, the explorer who raced Amundsen to be first to the South Pole,
found he had been beaten there by a matter of days, and died on the return
trip. He was bringing back a load of rock samples that he had collected en
route.

In present days, we know that rocks laying loose on the Antarctic ice sheets
are as likely as not to be meteorites, because most other land is buried,
except where the mountains jut out of the ice. Has anyone ever looked at
those samples Scott was bringing back and tested them to see if any are of
meteoric origin? It might be an interesting footnote if the first
meteorites collected from Antarctica weren't found by a Japanese research
team, but by Scott.

Tracy Latimer
Received on Tue 15 Mar 2005 11:57:53 PM PST