ANSMET 2019-2020 Field Season at Davis-Ward, Antarctica

2019-2020 ANSMET Team Members

Lauren Angotti, Case Western Reserve University, Ohio

Marc Caffee*, Purdue University, Indiana

Emilie Dunham, Arizona State University

Cindy Evans*, NASA Johnson Space Center

Alex Gerst, Astronaut, European Space Agency

Jim Karner*, science lead, Co-PI, University of Utah

Nicole Lunning, Rutgers University, New Jersey

Brian Rougeux*, second mountaineer

John Schutt*, lead mountaineer and field safety officer since 1981, Case Western Reserve University, Ohio

Veterans of previous seasons are marked with an asterisk (*). Pictured above (left to right) Alex, Nicole, Cindy, John, Lauren, Emilie, Brian, and Marc.

The 2019-2020 Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) field team returned to the icefields and glacial moraines surrounding the Davis Nunataks and Mt. Ward, known as Davis-Ward, recovering 346 meteorites. This total adds to the successful history of ANSMET in the Davis-Ward area, where close to 3000 meteorites had already been collected during six previous seasons since the icefields were discovered in the mid-1980s. Every meteorite sample will support research and analyses of the building blocks of our Solar System, strengthen the science gained from asteroid samples returned by spacecraft missions, and bring us new knowledge of how the planets and materials in our Solar System formed and evolved.

ANSMET is a U.S.-led, competitively-funded, university-based project that plans, manages, and implements the recovery of Antarctic meteorites; historically supported by NASA or the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF-Office of Polar Programs) or both and the Smithsonian Institution. Curation and characterization of the meteorites are handled at NASA Johnson Space Center and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Begun in 1976, ANSMET is currently led by Co-Principal Investigators Dr. Ralph P. Harvey (Case Western Reserve University) and Dr. James Karner (University of Utah). Details of curation, characterization, and allocation of the ANSMET meteorites are available from the NASA Johnson Space Center at curator.jsc.nasa.gov/antmet/index.cfm. Qualified scientists are directed to that site for more information about procedures and deadlines for requesting meteorite samples for study.

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For more information see: the ANSMET website the February 2020 Antarctic Meteorite Newsletter, and from PSRD: Meteorites on Ice,  and  Searching Antarctic Ice for Meteorites.

See also:
35 Seasons of U.S. Antarctic Meteorites (1976-2010): A Pictorial Guide to the Collection, edited by K. Righter, C. Corrigan, T. McCoy, and R. Harvey, American Geophysical Union and John Wiley & Sons, Inc., December 2014, 320 pages.

Antarctic Meteorite Classification Database, by curator.jsc.nasa.gov.

Antarctic Meteorite Sample References, searchable bibliography with over 1600 peer-reviewed publications through 2017, by curator.jsc.nasa.gov.

PSRD General Resources, for meteorites and planetary science.

Written by Linda Martel, Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, for PSRD.