Antarctic Meteorite Location and Mapping Project

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Antarctic Meteorite Location and Mapping Project NASA-CR-194841 JN -9o-c/L., f ANTARCTIC METEORITE LOCATION AND MAPPING PROJECT _0 0 ,-4 r_ t_ e-I ! P,j U 0 C Z 0 0 uJ _,. "0 Z_f_J ;-X k.a _.- I-- wrD_. >- _ I-- I5 i. _ Z ...J 4-_ LL_ .,.I <¢ t" I--0.. R l.Lt X' C ,-- LPI Technical Report Number 93-07 Lunar and Planetary Institute 3600 Bay Area Boulevard Houston TX 77058-1113 LPI/TR--93-07 ANTARCTIC METEORITE LOCATION AND MAPPING PROJECT (AMLAMP) ANTARCTIC METEORITE LOCATION MAP SERIES EXPLANATORY TEXT and USER'S GUIDE TO AMLAMP DATA J. Schutt, B. Fessler, and W. A. Cassidy Houston TX 77058-1113 Lunar and Planetary Institute 3600 Bay Area Boulevard LPI Technical Report 93-07 LPI/TR--93-07 Compiled in 1993 by LUNAR AND PLANETARY INSTITUTE The Institute is operated by the Universities Space Research Association under Contract No. NASW-4574 with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Material in this volume may be copied without restraint for library, abstract service, educational, or personal research purposes; however, republication of any portion requires the written permission of the authors as well as appropriate acknowledgment of this publication. This report may be cited as Schutt J., Fessler B., and Cassidy W. A. (1993)Antarctic Meteorite Location and Mapping Project, 2nd edition. LPI Tech. Rpt. 93-07. Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston. 179 pp. This report is distributed by ORDER DEPARTMENT Lunar and Planetary Institute 3600 Bay Area Boulevard Houston TX 77058-I 113 Mail order requestors will be invoiced for the cost of shipping and handling. Please refer to the LPI Technical Report number when ordering. LPI Technical Report 93.07 iii Preface This technical report is an update to LPI Technical Report 89-02 (Schutt et al., 1989), which contained data and information that was current to May 1987. Since that time approximately 4000 new meteorites have been collected, mapped, and characterized, mainly from the numerous icefields in the Allan Hills-David Glacier region, from the Pecora Escarpment and Moulton Escarpment in the Thiel Mountains-Patuxent region, the Wisconsin Range region, and from the Beardmore region. Meteorite location maps for icefields from these regions have been produced and are available. This report includes explanatory texts for the maps of new areas and provides information on updates of maps of the areas covered in LPI Technical Report 89-02. Sketch maps and description of locales that have been searched and have yielded single or few meteorites are also included. The meteorite listings for all the icefields have been updated to include any classification changes and new meteorites recovered from icefields in the Allan Hills-David Glacier region since 1987. The text has been reorganized and minor errors in the original report have been corrected. Computing capabilities have improved immensely since the early days of this project. Current software and hardware allow easy access to data over computer networks. With various commercial software packages, the data can be used many different ways, including database creation, statistics, and mapping. The databases, explanatory texts, and the plotter files used to produce the meteorite location maps are available through a computer network. Information on how to access AMLAMP data, its formats, and ways it can be used are given in the User's Guide to AMLAMP Data section. Meteorite location maps and thematic maps may be ordered from the Lunar and Planetary Institute. Ordering information is given in Appendix A. PAGE |1/ It,ITEt_Ti@NALLYBLANK LP/ Technical Report 93-07 • =. ...... p PlW,(_IO4NG PAGE BLANK NOT FP,..MEo CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 1 History of Meteorite Location Maps and Field Mapping Procedures ................................................. 1 AMLAMP Meteorite Location Maps .................................................................................................. 2 Explanatory Texts ............................................................................................................................... 3 Allan Hills-David Glacier Region Meteorite Location Map Series ....................................................... 7 Allan Hills Main Icefield ................................................................................................................ 9 Allan Hills Near Western Icefield ................................................................................................. 27 Allan Hills Middle Western Icefield ............................................................................................. 35 Allan Hills Far Western Icefield ................................................................................................... 39 Elephant Moraine Meteorite Location Map Series ........................................................................... 51 Elephant Moraine-Elephant Moraine Icefield .............................................................................. 53 Elephant Moraine-Texas Bowl Icefield ........................................................................................ 61 Beardmore Glacier Region Meteorite Location Map Series ................................................................. 87 Dominion Range and Grosvenor Mountains Icefields ...................................................................... 89 Queen Alexandra Range-Goodwin Nunataks Area ......................................................................... 93 Lewis Cliff Icefields .......................................................................................................................... 97 Thiel Mountains Meteorite Location Map Series ............................................................................... 139 Moulton Escarpment ....................................................................................................................... 141 Pecora Escarpment Meteorite Location Map Series, Pecora Escarpment ........................................... 145 Wisconsin Range Meteorite Location Map Series, Upper Reedy Glacier Area ................................. 159 Patuxent Range ................................................................................................................................... 163 Stewart Hills ........................................................................................................................................ 169 Mount Howe ....................................................................................................................................... 171 Nimrod Glacier Region ....................................................................................................................... 173 References ........................................................................................................................................... 175 User's Guide to AMLAMP Data ........................................................................................................ 177 Appendix A. Antarctic Meteorite Location and Thematic Map Order Form LPI Technical Report 03-07 I Introduction Antarctica has been a prolific source of meteorites since spatial distribution of meteorites on a given stranding meteorite concentrations on bare ice stranding sites were surface may give insights into the concentration mecha- discovered in 1969 (Yoshida et al., 1971). Since 1976 the nism(s) or define areas in which glaciological studies U.S. has joined Japan and a consortium of European should be concentrated. Thematic maps and spatial analysis countries (EUROMET) as nations that have sent expedi- of meteorite types, masses, terrestrial ages, or combinations tions specifically to search for meteorites in Antarctica. of those parameters will yield additional clues. About 14,000 meteorite specimens have been recovered as We are preparing Antarctic meteorite location maps for a result of these efforts. The U.S. program, currently under the specimens found by the ANSMET project and others. the direction of W. A. Cassidy and J. Schutt of the Univer- We have prepared this report to accompany the meteorite sity of Pittsburgh and R. Harvey of the University of location maps that have been produced to date. The report Tennessee, is supported by the Office of Polar Programs of is at once a catalog of meteorite find sites in Antarctica and the U.S. National Science Foundation. The Antarctic a brief history of search and recovery efforts. For areas Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) project has been active where meteorites have been found in great numbers, large over much of the Trans-Antarctic Mountain Range. The (33" x 44", E-size) maps have been created and are first ANSMET expedition (a joint U.S.-Japanese effort) available from the LPI (see Appendix A). Reduced versions discovered what turned out to be a significant concentration of these maps are shown in the following sections. For areas of meteorites at the Allan Hills in southern Victoria Land where few or single specimens were found or in areas (Cassidy, 1977, 1978, 1979). Later reconnaissance in this where meteorites were found outside the bounds of these region resulted in the discovery of meteorite concentrations maps, we have used references in the explanatory texts, air- on icefields to the west of the Allan Hills, at Reckling photos, satellite images, sketch maps, and published Moraine, and Elephant Moraine (Cassidy, 1980; Cassidy U.S.G.S. maps to document the
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