This bare ice area lies immediately to the northeast of the Texas Bowl Icefield and is part of the Elephant Moraine icefield complex (ALH-DAV-Figure 1- 46 KB JPEG). EET-Figure 1 (42 KB JPEG) is an enlargement of a Landsat image which shows the main part of the Elephant Moraine icefields and the relative location of Texas Bowl and Meteorite City.

The icefield was first visited during a reconnaissance traverse during the 1982-83 season Cassidy, et. al. 1983). A few meteorites were recovered. Additional reconnaissance and limited systematic searching of the area began in the 1987-88 season (Huss et al., 1988). A total of 110 specimens were collected at that time. The 1996-97 season saw a continuation of systematic searching and the recovery of 329 meteorite specimens (Harvey and Schutt, 1997).

EET7-Table 1 shows the types of meteorites found on the Meteorite City Icefield and their numbers.

All meteorites recovered during the 1987-88 season were surveyed with a theodolite and EDM from several base stations in the area. For the 1996-97 season a GPS base station was established by differential methods tied to McMurdo. All positions of meteorites and local survey base stations were determined by GPS differential post-processing.

Acknowledgments; We thank ANSMET field party members Vagn, Buchwald, Bill Cassidy, Tony Meunier, and Carl Thompson (1982-83); Gary Huss, Carl Thompson, Jerry Wagstaff, and Peter Wasilewski (1987-1988).  The 1996-97 field party consisted of Guy Consolmagno, Ralph Harvey, Laurie Leshin, Rene Martinez, Sarah Russell, and John Schutt with assistance from Kim McDonald, Mary Roach, and Andy Young. Bjorn Johns of the UNAVCO provided the geodetic quality GPS equipment and provided us with the GPS base station coordinates.

Traverse to the Elephant Moraine - Meteorite City Icefield Meteorite Listing

Traverse back to the Table of Contents