Why are meteorites so much more easily found on Antarctica than on the other continents?

Question

Why are meteorites so much more easily found on Antarctica than on the other continents

Answer 1

An interesting question. First, there are few humans and no animals to interfere with them. Secondly, whiel they're on the surface they stand out like a sore thumb on the ice cap. Most meteorites look fairly unremarkable. If you saw one lying around,unless you knew what you were looking for, you'd probably think it was an ordinary rock. Thirdly, the ice sheets slowly spread outwards. A snowflake falls on the ice, gets covered with more snow, sinks and moves outwards towards the coast. A meteorite will also sink and move outwards, and if it meets a ridge of the bedrock under the ice, it will be stopped, while the ice keeps moving over the ridge. So you get an accumulation of meteorites on the side of the ridge away from the coast. Finally, in most parts of the world, meteorites and other interesting geological features like dikes, sills, fault lines and rift valleys are obscured by vegetation. It's only in a few places like the Icelandic tundra, the Ethiopian desert and Antarctica that you can see them clearly.

Answer 2

It's a shame the people that do this don't answer, as they are a large group.

There are a couple of key reasons. First others have pointed out, that on the big ice sheets there are no other sources of rocks than falling out of the sky. So if you see a dark coloured rock out on the snow you know it probably came from the sky. The other is that blue ice fields, where they target looking for meteorites, are areas where the snow and ice abalates, evaporates from solid ice, to water vapor in the air. This concentrates meteorites on the surface. So they are easy to see, and usually no other sources of rocks, and on blue ice they can concentrate and increase the chances of finding them.

Answer 3

Much of Antarctica is kilometers-thick ice cap. Any rock found in this ice almost certainly fell from the sky.

Answer 4

Much More Easily

Answer 5

What injanier said. Also, the wind "sweeps" them across the ice, so there are spots where the meteors are concentrated!