[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Meteorite Falls

In your message dated Monday 22, June 1998 you wrote :
> At 11:59 AM 6/22/98 GMT, you wrote:
> > But 
> >should we consider, also, those government employees in Antarctica who have 
> >picked up many thousands of meteorites?

> 
>   Sure but until they knew they were there they weren't looking for them
> specifically were they? Also, how many amateur hunters have the money or
> facilities to go and find/recover them in Antarctica? Once the scientists
> knew they were there it was easy enough for them to get the funds and
> equiptment to go and recover them. 

Well, this is news to me! Funding projects of this nature has never been easy 
and the ANSMET teams have had their fair share of problems.

> Especially when Mars rocks were found.
> Would they have continued (for long) if they didn't find any Mars material?  

Yes they would. Antarctica provides an (almost) unique record of meteorite falls 
over a long period of time, which gives scientists some idea of whether the 
meteorite flux has been constant of varying. One of the few other places in the 
world where this could be done is the Nullarbor Plain, but so many meteorites 
have now been stolen from that region that the data are questionable.

Only a handful of Martian meteorites have ever been recovered from Antarctica - 
too few to justify the cost of recovery. The issues surrounding Antarctic 
meteorites are far more complicated than the simple desire to secure a few 
Martian rocks.

-- 
Phil Bagnall
http://www.ticetboo.demon.co.uk/