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Darwin-Byrd Glacier Region Introduction
The Darwin-Byrd Glacier region of meteorite sites (INTRO-Figure 1 - 110 KB JPEG) extends over 250 kilometers along the Transantarctic Mountains, from the Darwin Glacier area southward to the Lonewolf Nunataks at the head of the Byrd Glacier. Darwin-Byrd-Figure 1 (92 KB JPEG) is a satellite image of a portion of the region. The region was first visited during the 1978-79 season by meteorite search teams (Shiraishi, 1979; Marvin, 1982) and likely targets identified. Additional reconnaissance during the 1992-93 season confirmed the Meteorite Hills icefields as a meteorite concentration worthy of future systematic searches (Harvey and Schutt, 1993). The Meteorite Hills is located at the head of the Darwin and Hatherton Glaciers. Teams returned in 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 resulting in recovering a cumulative total of 1132 meteorite specimens from the Meteorite Hills Icefield. Reconnaissance was also conducted at other sites in the region. A shower of iron meteorites was discovered on Derrick Peak, overlooking the Hatherton Glacier. Meteorites in small numbers have been discovered on icefields around a few other isolated nunatak groups: the Lonewolf Nunataks, Finger Ridges, Tentacle Ridge, and Bates Nunataks.
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