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The existing collection of meteorites has vastly increased due to the discovery of numerous meteorites in Antarctica. We've talked about the "hows" and "why's" of meteorite occurrences in the Antarctic in class. Now I want you to use the Internet to examine the "where?" and "how many" questions.
You will need to find the Antarctic Meteorite Location and Mapping Project (AMLAMP) homepage in the Lunar and Planetary Institute website:
(http://geology.geol.cwru.edu/~amlamp/intro/)
to do some of this, but do surf around and look for more sites. If you hit any sites that are not at JSC, please include the web addresses in your answers.
1) Where are the major Antarctic sites from which
meteorites have been recovered? List them, please.
2) Geographically, what do all of these sites have
in common (i.e., what major geographic feature(s) in Antarctica are they associated
with?)[Hint: look for satellite/aerial photo imagery of Antarctica.]
3) Which site has been studied the longest (i.e.,
to where have they made the most annual collecting trips)? Which is the newest
site to be studied, and when was it first examined?
4) Which site has been the most productive in terms
of meteorite samples collected?
5) OK, now about the meteorites: what kind of meteorite
is most commonly found in Antarctica?
6) Most meteorites are believed to originate in the
Asteroid Belt. Is that true of all the Antarctic meteorites? If not, which
other places in the Solar system (or beyond) did they come from (and how
do we know that)?
7) Which meteorites have most recently been found in Antarctica (i.e., when was the last collecting trip that is recorded here, and what did they find)?
8) Are there other places on the Earth, that, like
Antarctica, have been very fertile collecting sites for meteorites? If so,
where are they, and what or how many meteorites have been found? Use links
in the ANLAMP site and/or the Net Search option, and see what you can dig
up about such places.
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