Meteorites, hiding in ice sheets of Antarctic, may disappear amid climate warming: study

Scientists, in a new study, have hinted that meteorites may soon disappear from the icy plains of Antarctica due to climate warming. 

The Antarctic is a haven for meteorite hunters and is filled with meteorites in today's date.  Every year, around 1,000 space rocks are found in the region and it is easy to spot their dark hue in the white expanse.

Field Museum of Natural History and the University of Chicago research scientist Maria Valdes has hinted that the scenario may not be so in the coming days.

“Antarctica, a desert of ice, provides an ideal background for meteorite recovery — go to the right place, and any rock you find must have fallen from the sky,” said Valdes. 

In late 2022 and early 2023, she visited the region as part of an expedition team to complete her work at the museum’s Robert A. Pritzker Centre for Meteoritics and Polar Studies. Five meteorites were found by the international team in the expedition.

“We stumbled across an enormous brownstone sitting by itself in the middle of an ice field. It was a little bit smaller than a bowling ball and quite heavy — 7.6 kg (about 17 pounds),” Pritzker said via email. 

“I had seen and handled so many meteorites in my career, but finding one yourself is such a different feeling," she added.

The meteorites, which are made part of extraterrestrial bodies such as the moon, Mars or large asteroids, speak in detail about the solar system and how it was formed. 

However, the new study emphasises how this trove of scientific information is being threatened by the climate crisis.

Meteorites are getting lost in the melting ice which places them out of the reach of scientists.

“As the climate continues to warm, Antarctic rocks are sinking into the ice at an increasing rate. Over time, this will make many meteorites inaccessible to scientists,” said Valdes, who is not part of the latest research. 

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“We lose precious time capsules that hold clues to the history of our Solar System," he added.

As per the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, as the Earth warms, nearly 5,000 meteorites may disappear from the surface of melting ice sheets every year. 

To date, scientists have found more than 48,000 meteorites in Antarctica, which is 60 per cent of specimens found on the entire Earth.

(With inputs from agencies)