Abstract:

Up to date,32 meteorites were collected on the blue ice in Grove Mountains region, Act-arctica, by 15th and 16th teams of Chinese Antarctic Expedition during 1998-1999 and 1999-2000 field seasons. Of the 32 Grove Mountains meteorites, there are 1 Iherzolitic sherg-ottite, 1 eucrite, 1 ungrouped iron meteorite and 29 ordinary chondrites. Six out of the 29 ordinary chondrites are unequilibrated L3 chondrites. Hence, Grove Mountains meteorites are characteristic of unusually high abundance of rare meteorite types. Based on review of classification and the chemical group-petrographic type distribution patterns of meteorites collected in other regions of Antarctica, we conducted a preliminary comparative study of the Grove Mountains meteorites with other Chinese meteorites. Several important issues are discussed in the paper, including meteorite concentrated areas, new meteorite type candidates, relationship between properties of meteorites with their heliocentric distance, and continuous chemical fractionation of early solar nebula.