Grove Mountains meteorite recovery and relevant data distribution service

Abstract

Meteorites are extremely valuable in providing clues about the origin, evolution, and composition of the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, other planets, and asteroids. Since the first discovery of a meteorite in Antarctica, more and more meteorite concentrations on bare ice stranding sites were discovered. Antarctica is identified as a prolific source of extraterrestrial materials. The Grove Mountains area, covered by ice, snow, and nunataks, is located in the Antarctic inland area. It is about 380 km away from the Chinese Zhongshan Antarctic Research Station in East Antarctica. Since 1998, 11,452 meteorites have been collected from the Grove Mountains by the Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition (CHINARE). It is confirmed that the Grove Mountains area is a productive search area for meteorites in Antarctica. More and more meteorite recoveries led to the recognition that unique mechanisms relating to meteorite concentrations exist in Antarctica. Besides meteorite field collections, the extraction of blue ice based on satellite images, meteorite concentration mechanisms, and meteorite data distribution service are discussed in this paper. Wide distribution of blue ice indicates the enrichment of meteorites. Based on the different spectrum characteristics and coherence of snow, blue ice, and bare rocks, blue ice areas are extracted from optical images and coherence maps. According to meteorite field collections and optical images, moraines are also identified as meteorite concentration sites in the Grove Mountains area. The meteorite concentration theories should be further analyzed by taking into account ice-flow dynamics, mountains' blocking effect, katabatic wind and ice ablation, and others. Moreover, in order to strengthen the visualization and network sharing of the valuable meteorite data, desktop software based on ArcObjects and web software based on ArcIMS are developed within this study. The desktop software also enables further analysis of the meteorite concentration mechanisms in the Grove Mountains.