Traverse to the Mount Prestrud Meteorite Listing
Mount Prestrud
Mt. Prestrud (86º34'S 165º07'W) in the Queen Maude Mountains, lies near the western extreme of the Wisconsin Range-Scott Glacier region of meteorite sites. Mt. Prestrud and Mt. Wisting, 15 kilometers north, lie at the juncture of the Amundsen Glacier and a large tributary, the Devil's Glacier. The Norway Glacier is a small glacier which cuts between the two nunataks. PRE33-WSG34-Figure 1 (76 KB JPEG) is a portion of the U.S.G.S. Nielsen Plateau and Mt. Wisting 1:250000 scale maps of the general area. PRE33-WSG34-Figure 2 (33 KB JPEG) an oblique aerial photo looking northward over the Mt. Prestrud and Mt. Wisting area.
During the 1995-1996 field season a small ANSMET field party was airlifted to the area for reconnaissance of the icefields in the Mt. Prestrud and Mt. Wisting areas. Much of the Norway Glacier in the immediate vicinity of Mt. Prestrud is clear of snow. The area of blue ice in the upper reaches of the Norway Glacier yielded three meteorite specimens. No other meteorites were recovered below the initial finds on the Norway Glacier. However, a small ice tongue with a very restricted accumulation zone located on the divide between Mt. Prestrud and Mt. Bjaaland and flowing northward until it ends in moraine against the Norway Glacier, was a surprising findsite. A total of 14 specimens were found on this relatively small icefield. Many of them were mixed in with the terrestrial material near the terminus of the ice tongue and in close to the surficial moraine.
PRE33-Table 1 is a tabulation of meteorite types from Mt. Prestrud.
Meteorite positions were determined by point positioning, averaging 100 or more GPS fixes at each location with Selective Availability on. PRE33-WSG34-Figure 3 (82 KB JPEG) is a map showing the approximate locations of meteorites collected from the Mt. Prestrud area.
Acknowledgments; The ANSMET reconnaissance team included Ralph Harvey, Pascal Lee, Anders Meibom, and John Schutt.
Traverse to the Mount Prestrud Meteorite Listing
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