H
aving successfully defended her dissertation in September, Center alumna Dr. Emilie Dunham is preparing to collect meteorites from Antarctica this week!
As a member of the US-led Antarctic Search for Meteorites program (ANSMET), she'll be collecting meteorites from stranding surfaces along the Transantarctic Mountains. To date, ANSMET has recovered over 22,000 meteorites – these meteorites are used by scientists around the world, whose research is leading to new knowledge of the early Solar System and providing invaluable insight into its geologic history.
Photo: Dr. Emilie Dunham presents her research at the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. ASU/CMS.
You can follow the 2019-20 ANSMET team members via their blog and learn about their preparation for living in extreme cold, what makes Antarctica such a great location to collect meteorites, and the team's progress through the field season.
Dr. Dunham is not the first to make the journey from hot Arizona desert to cold Antarctic desert; in 2012-13, ASU Professors Meenakshi Wadhwa (then Director of the Center for Meteorite Studies) and Tom Sharp were part of an ANSMET team that took 25,000 pounds of gear – including tents, snow mobiles, meteorite collection equipment, solar panels, fuel, cooking stoves and food – for six weeks of remote field camping in extreme cold conditions. Read more about their experience here.
