ANTARCTIC METEORITE LOCATION AND MAPPING PROJECT (AMLAMP)
EXPLANATORY TEXT

Elephant Moraine - Texas Bowl Icefield

The Texas Bowl Icefield area of the Elephant Moraine Icefield complex has proved to be one of the densest concentrations yet discovered, with 1219 specimens recovered from a restricted 15 square kilometer area. This local bare ice patch lies 26 kilometers WNW of Elephant Moraine and is a continuation of the Reckling Moraine - Elephant Moraine ice escarpment feature (ALH-DAV-Figure 1 - 46 KB JPEG). EET-Figure 1 (38 KB JPEG) is an enlargement of the Landsat image showing the main portion of the Elephant Moraine Icefield complex. Ice generally flows through the area from south to north over a series of shallow bed rock escarpments.

Meteorites were first found in the Texas Bowl Icefield area during reconnaissance and systematic searches in the 1987-88 field season (Huss et al., 1988). A total of 185 specimens were recovered. During the 1990-91 season the entire bare ice area covered by the Elephant Moraine - Texas Bowl Icefield Meteorite Location Map was systematically searched, yielding 1027 meteorite specimens. During the 1996-97 field season the ANSMET field team searching the nearby Meteorite City Icefield briefly visited the Texas Bowl. An additional 7 specimens were recovered.

The positions of meteorites from the 1985 and 1990 collections within the Texas Bowl area were determined using conventional surveying methods. A Magnavox MX-1502 TRANSIT satellite surveying instrument was used to determine the position of two survey stations by translocation from an established survey point occupied by another field project in the region. GPS was used in subsequent seasons.

As can be seen from the meteorite listing and EET8-Table 1 , a high percentage of meteorite samples from Texas Bowl are L-6 chondrites. This is may be an example of a meteorite shower that has apparently been re-concentrated by glacial motion. Since it was apparent that many of these were paired, a number of samples were arbitrarily paired at JSC without regard to their spatial distribution. As a result, the name EET 90053 has been assigned to a number of specimens that are spread over a wide area of the icefield. EET 90053,0 is the farthest north and most downwind of the chosen fragments. This is significantly different from all other situations where multiple specimens are paired and given the same name.

Acknowledgments; We thank ANSMET field party members Gary Huss, Carl Thompson, Jerry Wagstaff, and Peter Wasilewski (1987-1988) and Miriam Jackson, Suzanne Traub-Metlay, John Schutt, and Peter Wasilewski (1990-1991) for their contributions. Edward Waddington (University of Washington) provided TRANSIT translocation data which was post-processed by John Bolzan (Ohio State University).  The 1996-97 field party consisted of Guy Consolmagno, Ralph Harvey, Laurie Leshin, Rene Martinez, Sarah Russell, and John Schutt.


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Page last updated: 05/22/2005