Statistical properties of the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM) micrometeorite collection

• Published in: Polar Science
• Main Authors: Clément Suavet, Ralph P. Harvey, Luigi Folco, Jérôme Gattacceca, Myriam Kars, Pierre Rochette
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: NEANIAS Atmospheric Research Community; French National Research Agency (ANR); General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology; Aquatic Science; Evolution; Behavior and Systematics; Antarctic; South Pole; Transantarctic Mountains; Walcott; Antarc*; Antarctica; South pole
• Online Access: https://www.openaccessrepository.it/record/87187; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polar.2009.06.003

Abstract Micrometeorites have been recovered from traps located at the summit of nunataks in the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM), Antarctica. They constitute the TAM micrometeorite collection. Micrometeorites accumulated by direct infall for hundreds of thousands of years. This long collection duration is confirmed by the wide range of weathering by dissolution of olivine in the stony micrometeorites from the TAM collection. A statistical study of the size distribution and frequency by type of this collection, and comparison with other Antarctic micrometeorite collections (the South Pole Water Well collection and the Walcott Neve collection), suggest that the TAM collection is essentially unbiased. Thanks to the very long exposure of the traps, large diameter (>1000 μm) micrometeorites are present in sufficiently large numbers to allow a statistically meaningful estimate of their size distribution in this size range for the first time. We found that the slope of the size distribution remains constant in the 100–1600 μm size range. Therefore, the size distribution of micrometeorites in this size range is controlled by a single process.