I can now report with some authority that the total cost of 30+ years of collecting by ANSMET has been in the range of $20 million. Considering the record of scientific achievements that has been built on this collection of 20,000 specimens, I would have to say it has been a bargain.

Jeff

Make your homework. How many different meteorites do we have from Antarctica after a third of a century hunting and spending billions of USD? 7000.
This statement, appearing in some of the recent emails, is wrong. There are over 16,000 classified meteorites from the ANSMET expeditions, plus a few thousand unclassified. Counting the Japanese, Chinese,European, Korean, and minor collections, There ~27,000 classified Antarctic meteorites, and probably close to 20,000 not yet classified (mostly in the Japanese and Chinese collections). And where in the world did this figure of billions of dollars being spent by the US to collect its 20,000 meteorites come from?

Also, don't overlook the fact that Antarctic meteorite have proven to be vastly more valuable scientifically than NWA meteorites. They probably occur as subjects of scientific publications at >10x the frequency as NWA meteorites (I posted statistics on this some years ago, but can't locate it at the moment). This is because the main masses are well curated.

Jeff


Dr. Jeffrey N. Grossman       phone: (703) 648-6184
US Geological Survey          fax:   (703) 648-6383
954 National Center
Reston, VA 20192, USA


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