METEORITE HUNTING IN ANTARCTICA (pg.2)
Pictures from the 2000-2001 ANSMET expedition to Meteorite Hills, Antarctica
The people you will see in these images are Ben Bussey, Ralph Harvey, Larry Nittler, Sara Russell, Bill Oefelein, John Schutt, and Melissa Strait.
12-08-00: The Berg Field Center (BFC) in McMurdo. This is where field parties get outfitted with everything.
12-08-00: The "Bassler," a converted DC-3 that was used to bring us into the field.
12-08-00: Arrival at Meteorite Hills.
12-09-00: Bill and Larry's tent, including weather station at back and solar panel in front.
12-09-00: Sara and Melissa's, Bill and Larry's, John and Jeff's tents. John had a wind turbine, in addition to solar panels, to generate power.
12-09-00: Ralph filling five-gallon can with gas for skidoo, a nightly chore for the camp.
12-09-00: The Meteorite Hills are beautiful red cliffs surrounded by enormous expanses of blue ice.
12-09-00: The Meteorite Hills are predominately composed of reddish dolorite, a type of volcanic rock.
12-09-00: A beautiful "wind scoop" carved out of the ice by wind.
12-09-00: View of our camp from across the nearest ice field.
12-10-00: Sara and Ben enjoying gin and tonics after a hard day of hunting the elusive meteorite.
12-11-00: View from the top of a hill on which we placed a GPS unit for accurately determining meteorite positions.
12-11-00: Another view from the "GPS" Hill, looking at a steep slope of blue ice.
12-11-00: Larry collecting a meteorite, with Sara's assistance.
12-12-00. Because Ben and Ralph were leaving our camp early, we had a Christmas party on Dec 12 in the "party tent", an extra Scott tent we brought along for social gatherings. Jeff, Melissa, Sara, and John (L-R) at the party.
12-12-00: Ben arriving at the Christmas party.
12-12-00: Ralph and Bill at the Christmas party.
12-12-00: Larry and Ralph at the Christmas party.
12-13-00: A really cool picture of the Sun shining through clouds on the nearest hill to camp, taken around 11PM.
12-14-00: Looking down on LOTS of blue ice fields (from the GPS Hill).
12-14-00: A "pinnacle" on a blue ice field.
12-14-00: Driving amongst the pinnacles.
12-14-00: Driving downwind on an ice field, looking for meteorites. You can see the snow being blown along.
12-15-00: Sara looking for meteorites in a morraine.
12-16-00: Jeff had an unfortunate accident with an ice axe.
12-16-00: The nearest hill to camp has a sandstone layer, dating to more than 200 million years ago, overlain by 100 million year old dolorite.
12-16-00: Several of the party climbed up to the sedimentary sandstone layer.
12-16-00: At the base of the nearest hill to camp lies a beautiful, calm frozen "pond," with very interesting ice formations and lots of boulders coming out of the ice.
12-16-00: John Schutt took this picture of a cool texture in the ice of the "pond."