Elsevier

Computers & Geosciences

Volume 37, Issue 11, November 2011, Pages 1727-1734
Computers & Geosciences

Grove Mountains meteorite recovery and relevant data distribution service

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2011.05.013Get rights and content

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.

Highlights

► 11,452 meteorites have been collected from the Grove Mountains by CHINARE. ► The blue ice area and moraines are identified as meteorite concentration sites in this area. ► Desktop software based on ArcObjects and web software based on ArcIMS are developed. ► The visualization and network sharing of the valuable meteorite data are realized.

Introduction

The first discovery of a meteorite in Antarctica by Australia in 1912 was serendipitous and surprising. In 1969, a Japanese research team found nine meteorites at the Antarctic Yamato Mountains with the implication of a possible concentration mechanism (Yoshida et al., 1971). As more meteorite concentrations on bare ice stranding sites were discovered, Antarctica was identified as a prolific source of extraterrestrial material (Yoshida, 2010). More than 30,000 meteorite specimens have been recovered from Antarctica since systematic collection programs began in the mid-1970s. Of these, 11,452 meteorites were collected by the Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition (CHINARE) in the Grove Mountains, East Antarctica.

More and more meteorite recoveries led to the recognition that unique mechanisms relating to meteorite concentrations exist in Antarctica. Meteorite concentrations in Antarctica have invariably been found on the expanses of blue ice, or directly associated with them. Ablation, glacial movement, and direct infall are the key natural forces increasing the number of meteorites found in some blue ice areas (Harvey, 2003). The highest concentrations of meteorites discovered on Earth are found in the ice sheet covering Antarctica.

Based on the recovery of meteorites, it is essential to design and establish an information service platform for the management, display, query, analysis, visualization, and network sharing, where different types of meteorite data can be loaded and integrated. Such a platform can also promote data sharing and information exchange. GIS software, which has experienced fast growth in the past decade, has been further developed from traditional desktop GIS platforms, to WebGIS platforms (Yang et al., 2005). Desktop GIS platforms, such as ArcInfo, Mapinfo, and Microstation, are of high performance, high speed, and good flexibility. However, they rarely have unified standards. Each user needs to install the software individually, making it difficult for a large number of users to update and maintain the database. Because WebGIS software could have standard OpenGIS specifications and users can access the WebGISs via web browsers, a meteorite database developed on a WebGIS platform is easy to maintain and distribute. This kind of software has been greatly advanced in recent years with popular systems, such as Google Maps, Bing Maps, and ArcIMS. However, WebGIS software needs further improvement in efficiency, performance, and interoperability, in particular to meet the need of handling a large set of meteorite data in a geospatial cyberinfrastructure fashion (Yang et al., 2010).

In this paper, blue ice distribution, meteorite recovery, and concentration sites in the Grove Mountains are presented. The developments of a new data platform and meteorite data distribution service are reported.

Section snippets

The Grove Mountains

The Grove Mountains area, covered by ice, snow, and nunataks, is located in Princess Elizabeth land, 380 km away from the Chinese Zhongshan Station, East Antarctica (Fig. 1). It extends from 72°15′ south latitude and 73°40′ east longitude to 73°15′ south latitude and 76°00′ east longitude, with an area of 8000 km2 and an average elevation of 2000 m. The topographical tendency is higher in the south-east and lower in the north-west and the ice streams generally flow from the south-east to the

Blue ice in the Grove Mountains area

Antarctica is the best place in the world to find meteorites. However, at first, meteorites were found almost by accident. Over time, concentration mechanisms are being gradually recognized, and encourage subsequent more systematic collections. Usually, the search for Antarctic meteorites begins with a search for blue ice. A large distribution of blue ice indicates the possibility of meteorite enrichment. However, not all blue ice areas are guaranteed to be productive search areas for

Meteorite recovery in the Grove Mountains area

Antarctica is a natural laboratory for environmental and astrophysical research, and it is a unique collecting ground for the recovery of large numbers of meteorites. Meteorites are extremely valuable in providing clues about the origin, evolution, and composition of the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, other planets, and asteroids. Scientists have discovered that meteorites hidden in Antarctica's ice are better preserved than specimens elsewhere as the ice protects them from rusting, weathering, and

Meteorite data distribution service

Many Antarctic expeditions have contributed to meteorite recovery. Many meteorite websites and databases are available to provide information on meteorites from Antarctica and other places in the world (Schutt et al., 1993, Schutt, 2009). However, data sharing and information exchange are not well developed for polar studies. Based on the experience of the meteorite recovery program in the Grove Mountains area, we plan to visualize and share our meteorite data more widely through a geospatial

Discussion and conclusions

This paper reports on blue ice areas, moraines, meteorite recovery, meteorite concentration mechanisms, and meteorite data distribution service. The results of this study can be summarized as follows:

  • (1)

    The blue ice areas in the Grove Mountains area attracted scientists' attention as a likely site for meteorite concentration, which led to field expeditions and successful meteorite recovery. Satellite images are indispensable for the interpretation of the blue ice areas and moraines, providing

Acknowledgments

This research is funded by the Chinese 863 program (No. 2 009AA12Z133, PI: Dr. Zhou Chunxia), National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (No. 40606002, No. 41076126/D0611, PI: Dr. Zhou Chunxia), National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2011CB707101, PI: Dr. Chen Nengcheng), and the eleventh-five Basic Surveying and Mapping of the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping (No. 1469990711109-1, PI: Prof. E Dongchen). We sincerely thank Zhang Jie, Polar Research Institute of China, for

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