A Lode of Meteorites 
Antarctica has been found to be an exceptional 
storehouse of these extraterrestrial objects 
by Brian Mason 
Conventional wisdom would predict 
that meteorites falling in Antarctica 
would soon be buried in the ice that 
covers almost the entire continent and 
never reappear, except perhaps in the 
moraines exposed in a few coastal 
areas. And the chance of recognizing 
the odd meteorite in the mass of rock 
debris in a moraine is small indeed. 
Prior to 1969, only four meteorites 
had in fact been found on the whole 
continent of Antarctica. But in 1969 
a Japanese expedition picked up nine 
meteorites in a small area on the ice- 
cap near the Yamato Mountains, in 
the African sector of Antarctica. 
When that news was first reported, 
scientists thought that the find might 
represent a single meteorite that had 
broken into several pieces during or 
after its fall. However, mineralogical 
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