This newsletter is a chondrite-lovers' dream. You achondrite buffs got your dream last issue. This newsletter presents classifications for 400 meteorites from the 1994 ANSMET collection and 6 meteorites that have been reclassified. The new meteorites include 381 equilibrated ordinary chondrites, 4 unequilibrated ordinary chondrites, 1 anomalous chondrite, 4 enstatite chondrites, 7 carbonaceous chondrites, 1 achondrite, 1 stony iron and 1 iron. It also includes chondrite reclassifications by Sasha Krot and Alan Rubin.
ANSMET
The field team reports that this year's haul is 250 (medium to large sized) meteorites despite the fact that the weather made it impossible to work for 50% of the field season and that the goal of the season was to reconnoiter potential new areas. The icefields around the Mt. Prestrud, Mt. Wisting, and Graves Nunataks were visited in addition to known productive icefields around Grosvenor Mountains using Twin Otter aircraft. These are along the southern end of the Transantarctics. The New Mexico Tech geology group were again working in the Allan Hills area and retrieved several more meteorites from the main icefield. At this writing the meteorites are still in McMurdo but will be in Houston around the first of April.
Government Furlough
Civil servants at JSC and the Smithsonian Institution were sent home during both year-end government furloughs. Thanks to the dedicated effort of the JSC Lockheed Martin contractor staff who kept meteorite work moving. We appreciate the positive comments from some of our investigators - and hope you wrote your congressmen as we all did. At least NSF didn't furlough Antarctic research during the only months available for field work and only the weather got in the way of ANSMET.
Information on the U.S. Collection of Antarctic Meteorites
Number of meteorites: 7645
Number of meteorites classified: 7297