It was an ANSMET specimen (EETA79001) that provided the conclusive evidence that some meteorites are actually samples of Mars; 5 of the 18 martian meteorites known today were collected by ANSMET. These martian meteorites are so critical to our understanding of Mars, and have gathered so much attention, that many people think that ANSMET's primary mission is to recover martian specimens.

This is not strictly true, of course; our goal is to recover the most representative sample of the meteorites falling on our planet, and provide them to researchers around the globe in a timely fashion. But the relatively complete and unsorted sample of meteorites recovered in Antarctica makes it the best place to find these rare martian specimens, and many of them have turned out to be unique. ALH77005 was the first Antarctic martian meteorite, and was the first lherzolitic (a volcanic lithology rich in pyroxene and olivine) martian meteorite. EETA 79001 contained glass with trapped martian atmosphere that proved Mars was it's original source, and also contains two distinct volcanic lithologies in one specimen. QUE94201 is the most primitive (most like the martian mantle) volcanic rock among the martian meteorites, providing important clues to the makeup of that whole planet.

And then there's ALH84001. Recovered by ANSMET in 1984 from the Allan Hills icefields, it was originally misclassified because it was mineralogically similar to another class of meteorites. In 1993 it was found to have originated from the planet Mars, and immediately gained attention because of it's abundant secondary minerals; minerals that grew within fractures in the rock as a response to changing environmental conditions on Mars. Interest in the rock skyrocketed in 1996 when a group of NASA researchers suggested that the rock may contain evidence of ancient martian life. While most planetary researchers now question these claims, interest in Mars and the origins of life anywhere in the universe has been bolstered. ALH84001 is well on its way to becoming the single most important planetary specimen ever recovered, having been the focus of hundreds of scientific publications and discussed in thousands of others.