METEORITE HUNTING IN ANTARCTICA (pg.2)

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."