A team of scientists working at Princess Elisabeth
Antarctica recently discovered a meteorite weighing 18kg embedded in the East
Antarctic ice sheet, the largest such
meteorite found in the region since 1988.
The eight members of the SAMBA project, from Université
Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Japan’s National
Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) and Tokyo University were searching for meteorites scattered
across the Nansen Ice Field on January 28, when they found the 18kg ordinary
chondrite. The team discovered a total of 425 meteorites, with a total weight
of 75kg during the 40 day expedition, at an altitude of 2,900m, 140km south of
Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth Antarctica research base, which is operated by the
International Polar Foundation.