Welcome to KOREAMET!

The Korea Curation of Antarctic Meteorites (KOREAMET) is a government-funded program of KOPRI for the recovery, classification, storage, and distribution of Antarctic meteorites collected by the Korean expedition team.

Meteorites are extraterrestrial materials that originated from asteroids, Mars, and the Moon in our Solar System and have fallen to Earth. They are invaluable research samples that hold critical clues about the formation and evolution of the Solar System as well as the origin of life. To date, approximately 78,000 meteorites have been officially registered with the Meteoritical Society, of which about 49,000 were discovered in Antarctica.

Since the 2006–2007 season, the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) has been continuously conducting Antarctic meteorite expeditions, collecting about 1,500 meteorites to date, including a lunar meteorite. All collected meteorites undergo petrographic and cosmochemical classification and are registered with the Meteoritical Society, making them available to scientists worldwide.

KOREAMET utilizes state-of-the-art analytical instruments such as a Field Emission Electron Probe Micro-Analyzer (FE-EPMA), a Low Vacuum Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (LV FE-SEM), an Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer (IRMS), and a Noble Gas Mass Spectrometer to perform ultra-precise analyses of trace amounts of extraterrestrial materials. Through its collection of Antarctic meteorite samples and advanced analytical expertise, KOPRI actively engages in international collaborative research with domestic universities and research institutes as well as leading scientific institutions including NASA (USA), the University of Hawaii, and Japan’s Hokkaido University, Tohoku University, and the University of Tokyo.