There is a huge crater below Wilkes. Of course Li Du didn't know that he paid little attention to Antarctica, and he had never studied the geographical geology of Antarctica.

Elson went to prepare dinner, and Steve took them down and began to talk about the purpose of this trip to Antarctica.

As he said, he came to look for meteorites. There were many photos of meteorites hanging in the house. He took some of them on the table and showed them to Li Du.

The Wilkes Crater was discovered half a century ago. It is located just under the ice field in the Wilkes Region and is a large impact crater.

This crater is very large. After modern technology measurements, it is believed that the diameter reaches 243 kilometers and the deepest point can reach 848 meters.

In addition to craters, there may also be a mass tumor in Wilkes.

As the name suggests, mass tumors are a tumor of particularly large mass. They exist inside the planet and are an aggregate with a greater density than the surrounding geological density.

Humans have discovered mass tumors on the moon and Mars. According to aerospace research, it is the result of an asteroid impact.

A mass tumor was previously discovered on Earth in Hawaii, but the scientific research result is that it was obtained from a volcanic eruption, not from an asteroid impact.

Until later, the heavy force measurement and climate monitoring satellite of the United States discovered the mass tumor of Wilkes, which is larger than a crater and lasts about 300 kilometers!

There are no large volcanoes in Antarctica, which excludes that it is also formed by volcanic eruptions. In this way, the reason for the formation of this mass tumor is simple and clear:

It is the result of an asteroid impact!

"According to the research of air echo acoustics, there are gravity abnormalities in the lower end of this crater and mass tumor, and there are a large number of glass meteorites. The vast and scattered glass meteorites on the Australian continent are from here," Steve explained to him.

Li Du asked: "What does this mean?"

"It means a lot, first of all, there are a lot of meteorites here, and we'll look for these alien meteorites," Steve said.

Li Du smiled and said, "Oh, you want to be a meteorite hunter, right?"

Just like the art hunter he had contacted in Miami before, the meteorite hunter has the same nature, and is a professional looking for meteorites.

As we all know, meteorites have always been rare, even rarer than gold and diamonds. The ones that have been collected around the world have only 300 yuan so far.

Scarcity is precious, not to mention that meteorites have scientific research value that ordinary collections do not have. Therefore, meteorite collection has always been an important task carried out by various countries. Through meteorites on the earth, it has very important scientific value for understanding the age of the earth and the evolution of the earth.

Most of this collection work is not carried out by people, but is more purchased directly by the government.

There is competition among governments, and governments of all countries are very rich, so the price of meteorites has always remained high.

When Li Du learned about the world luxury goods market before, he noticed the meteorite market.

Meteorites are not regular customers at auctions, but as long as they appear, they will be the protagonist.

In 1993, Sotheby's Auction House auctioned a lunar meteorite for US$442,500, with a mass of only 0.33 grams!

In May 1998, Phillips Auction House in New York sold a heavy Mars meteorite, with a transaction price of US$3.36 million, with a smaller mass of only 0.28 grams!

Now humans can land on the moon and Mars. Logically speaking, stones can be brought back from these two planets. The moon and Martian meteorites that are located on the earth should not be expensive.

This is not the case. First, the ones that can reach the moon are several major powers of the United Nations Permanent Council, and secondly, the only ones that can reach the Mars are the US probes.

It is difficult for the detector to transport ore in the future, and the cost is very high, and it consumes more funds than those of these ores that naturally fall on the earth were auctioned at auction.

The US government even used the ore brought back from Mars as a diplomatic means. If it wanted to obtain their ore, other governments would have to pay a great price.

Not long ago, Christie's in Paris held a "natural history" auction in autumn. There was a 43-centimeter-long and 45-kilogram meteorite. Its transaction price was 78.25 million euros, which was very terrifying!

After hearing Li Du's words, Steve laughed and said, "The people in our Tucsonberg family are meteorite hunters, and they can all be called meteorite hunters, but I shouldn't be. I came to find meteorites for other purposes, not for profit."

“那为了什么?”李杜下意识问道.

Steve was silent, apparently he didn't want to give the answer.

Sophie secretly pulled Li Du and changed back to the topic: "Are you planning to find meteorites from the craters here? As far as I know, the Wilkes crater is under the ice cap and cannot be excavated, right?"

Steve nodded and said regretfully: "Yes, the ice cap is too hard and too thick, and the existing technology cannot travel hundreds of meters to take samples from it."

"My idea here is to search around the craters to see if I can find meteorites sputtered on the surface. And I also learn from Li's Opal mine to dig on the shallow surface and look for meteorites from it."

Li Du suddenly realized: "Oh, you go digging Opal with me, just prepare for this?"

"Studying for this, after all, I have never been exposed to similar jobs due to physical reasons." Steve smiled.

Li Du asked: "I have a hand in finding ore. If you think I can help, then you can just mention it. I can't take the initiative because you know, I don't want you to feel like I've violated your privacy."

Hearing him say this, Steve laughed helplessly.

He rubbed his hands and said, "Li, don't get me wrong. I don't want to keep something secret from you, but I think you may not believe what I said."

"If you think I can know, then you can say that I trust you very much." Li Du said.

Steve said: "Okay, let me tell you first. According to geology, topography and other research, if the craters and mass tumors in Wilkes are caused by meteorite impact, the diameter of the meteorite should be forty to fifty kilometers."

"Do you know? The meteorite that caused the Cycthulub crater is only ten kilometers in diameter."

The Chicthulub Crater is a crater impact remains found in Yucatón, Mexico or the Yucatan Peninsula. It is currently the largest crater that the earth can contact.

This impact event is considered to be the main cause of the Cretaceous-Territorial extinction event. After the impact, the asteroid completely evaporated and released energy up to 5.0x10^23 joules, equivalent to 120 trillion tons of yellow explosives, triggering a tsunami and causing a large amount of dust to enter the atmosphere, completely covering the sunlight, changing the global climate, and causing nuclear winters.

Many people may not understand this. To put it simply, this impact incident led to the end of the dinosaur era. People have always speculated that the dinosaurs that once ruled the earth were extinct by this meteorite!
Chapter completed!