Terrestrial Ages Survey of Antarctic Meteorites

该奖项由极地计划办公室的南极地质和地球物理计划提供，支持对南极陨石进行陆地年龄调查的项目。自1969年以来，世界上可用于科学研究的陨石中有三分之二以上是在南极洲发现的。美国国家科学基金会极地项目办公室与美国国家航空航天局和史密森学会合作，在促进这些标本的收集、管理和研究方面发挥了关键作用，这些机构赞助的科学努力对我们对地球和地外现象的理解做出了重大贡献。虽然从这些测量中获得的科学信息对于确定准确的暴露历史和描绘陨石配对至关重要，但这些测量也将对积累机制、平均风化寿命和陨石流入率的研究产生重大影响。冰川学家和地球物理学家也可能发现陨石的陆地年龄对他们研究冰动力学和冰川历史很有用。及时调查来自不同冰原的南极陨石的陆地年龄也可以为实地活动的规划和优先排序提供指导。然而，这项工作的主要价值在于，它将更好地描述南极陨石收集的基本特征，并为估计陨石流入率提供基础。

This award, provided by the Antarctic Geology and Geophysics Program of the Office of Polar Programs, supports a project to conduct a terrestrial age survey of Antarctic meteorites. More than two-thirds of the world's meteorites that are available for scientific investigation were recovered from Antarctica since 1969. The NSF Office of Polar Programs, in partnership with NASA and the Smithsonian Institution, have played a key role in facilitating the collection, curation, and study of these specimens, and scientific endeavors sponsored by these agencies have contributed significantly to our understanding of both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial phenomena. Although the scientific information garnered from these measurements is essential for determining accurate exposure histories and delineating pairing of meteorites, these measurements will also have a significant impact on studies of accumulation mechanisms, mean weathering lifetimes, and meteorite influx rates. Glaciologists and geophysicists also might find meteorite terrestrial ages useful in their studies of ice dynamics and glacial histories. A timely survey of Antarctic meteorites terrestrial ages from various ice fields may also provide guidance for the planning and the prioritization of field activities. The principal value of this work, however, is that it will provide better basic characterization of the Antarctic meteorite collection and provide a basis for estimating meteorite influx rates.