Antarctic Meteorites?

Iron meteorites "buried in Antarctica" by the sun, new research has suggested.

17:07 18 February 2016

Researchers from the University of Manchester say that they have a reason to believe that space rocks made of iron are buried somewhere in Antarctica.

 

The team now prepares to locate the rocks themselves.

 

Dr Katherine Joy from the University of Manchester, a co-author of the paper, said: "The study is proposing a hypothesis - these samples should be there. We just have to go and locate them."

 

She then explained why they are choosing to explore Antarctica.

 

"The great thing about Antarctica is they fall on the ice, and then the ice progressively moves away from the plateau. And where it hits these barriers, along the Transantarctic Mountains, the ice gets moved up,"

 

"So this continuous conveyor belt has delivered meteorites from the interior fall sites to the 'meteorite stranding zones' for the past couple of million years or so."

 

Scientists said that iron-rich meteorites are scarce because they never make it to the surface as they might be burying themselves into the ice.

 

Dr Joy's Manchester colleague Geoffrey Evatt added: "The challenge is now set - to be the first team to locate this reserve of meteorites and retrieve samples from it."