The meteorite flux of the past 2 Myr recorded in the Atacama Desert
1 : Centre européen de recherche et d'enseignement de géosciences de l'environnement
Institut de Recherche pour le Développement : UMR_D161, Aix Marseille Université : UM34, Collège de France : UMR7330, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique : UMR7330
2 : Laboratoire d'strophysique de Marseille
Aix Marseille Université : UMR7326, Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers, Centre National d\'Études Spatiales [Toulouse] : UMR7326, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique : UMR7326
3 : Museum of natural
Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle - MNHN (FRANCE)
4 : Observatoire de la Côte dÁzur
Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers : UMS2202, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique : UMS2202
5 : NASA Johnson Space Center
6 : Lunar and Planetary Institute [Houston]
We assembled a meteorite collection in the El Médano area of the Atacama desert. We showed that with about 200 meteorites per km2, this area bears the highest meteorite concentration in hot deserts. The evolution of the meteorite flux to Earth was studied by determining the terrestrial ages of a subset of this meteorite collection using the cosmogenic nuclide 36Cl. With an average age of 710 ka, this collection is the oldest collection of nonfossil meteorites at Earth's surface. This allows a determination of the average meteorite flux intensity over the past 2 Myr (222 meteorites larger than 10 g per km2 per Myr). We also discuss the possible compositional variability of the meteorite flux over the Quaternary Period.
| Type : | : | poster |
| Thématiques | : | Petits corps et formation du système solaire |
| PDF version | : |  PDF version |
