Month: July 2021

A fireball was witnessed at 04:00 local time in Bassikounou, a remote area in Hodh Ech Chargui, Mauritania. No records of the direction of movement were recorded. A single stone of 3165 gram was found by A. Salem El Moichine, a local resident, on the same day at 13:00, 11 km southeast of Bassikounou. The sample for classification was provided to NMBE by M. Ould Mounir, Nouakchott, who obtained it from his cousin who recovered the meteorite. Other specimens were found later on. These finds defined a 8 km long strewnfield. The total recovered mass was 46 kg. It is classified as an H5 chondrite. This specimen is 100% exquisite fusion crust and some lipping that can be seen in the first picture.

Brahin was first found in 1807 by two farmers in the south of Belarus. It is just a few kilometers away of Chernobyl and this event in 1986 contaminated the strewnfield of the Brahin meteorite. Fortunately only the first cm of soil are contaminated and not the meteorites.

Formed by a massive impact near the Libyan border with Egypt 26 million years ago, the Libyan Desert Glass impactite is one of the most sought after types.
Libyan Desert Glass was formed by a massive impact near the Libyan border with Egypt 26 million years ago. As a result of the heat and pressure of the impact event, sands were melted and formed an impact glass in a a wide range of shapes and colors from yellowish-white to yellow and black-yellow. Some pieces of Libyan Desert Glass contain meteoritic components but it does not have to do with their color. Some have aerodynamic features that resemble those of meteorites although they have been deeply wind-eroded.

The Deport meteorite was found in Red River County, Texas (USA) in 1926. It is an important old meteorite and one of the very first meteorites that Oscar Monnig cataloged for his collection. Deport is classified as an Iron, Coarse Octahedrite (IAB). As an iron meteorite, it probably comes from the core of asteroids that were destroyed by impacts with other bodies. It is an alloy of iron-nickel mainly although it contains other trace elements. This specimen is among the very first meteorites that Oscar Monnig cataloged for his collection. It was labeled by having a flat spot ground into them and then metal punches were used to apply their catalog number (see the 1AS code). These all were labeled with a number for the locality (number 1 in this case for Deport – the first locality entered into Monnig’s collection) followed by a letter for the order in which the specimen was cataloged starting with the letter A. The curators at Texas Christian University had no idea that Monnig had ever used such a system of labeling until these pieces were discovered in a batch of what were supposed to be Odessa specimens. Luckily they were recognized.

The Tunguska event is a massive explosion that occurred on the morning of June 30, 1908 at around 07:17 local time in a remote region approximately 750 km northwest of Lake Baikal. Natives and Russian settlers in the hills northwest of Lake Baikal observed a column of bluish light, nearly as bright as the sun moving across the sky. About ten minutes later, there was a sound similar to artillery fire. The sounds were accompanied by a shock wave that knocked people off their feet, broke windows and some reports suggest that at least three people may have died in the event. It also flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi) of forest. The explosion is generally attributed to the air burst (not impact itself) of a meteoroid about 100 meters in diameter that exploded at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometres (3 to 6 miles). Due to the remoteness of the area, only a few expeditions reached the site. One of them was organized by the University of Bologna in 1991, when this wood plate was taken.

The Sikhote Alin meteorite is one of the biggest meteorite falls in recorded history. It was felt over 300km away with a bolide that the witnesses describe as brighter than the Sun. It crossed the atmosphere at 14km/s above the Sikhote Alin mountains. The fall happened in Russian fast East, close the the China border at 10:38 h local time the 12 February 1947. Sikhote Alin fragmented in its descent until the pressure of the atmosphere was so high that it exploded. The event left mainly 2 types of meteorites, one with smooth surfaces due to the higher time being ablated and one with intricate shapes due to the explosion. All these specimens are oriented and some have flow lines. They have been individually selected among many kilos of material.

On August 4th or 5th 1998, a meteorite fall was witnessed on a mountain near of Zag, Morocco, in the border with Western Sahara. Around 175 kg were found and subsequently sold by locals. Zag is an ordinary chondrite H3-6 and regolith breccia.

The natives have a legend that the craters were formed during a fiery explosion; they call the place “Chindu chinna waru chingi yabu” which means “Sun walk fire devil rock”. It indicates that the theory that Henbury is a witnessed fall is more than likely. Moreover, it has been estimated that this iron has been on Earth for approximately 4200 years. Due to its characteristics it is classified as a IIIAB iron meteorite. The Henbury meteorite was found in Australia in 1931 for the first time by occidentals. The crater field is situated 11 km west-southwest of Henbury Cattle Station in the heart of arid Central Australia. It is known to have caused 13 to 14 craters ranging from 7 to 180 meters (23 to 591 ft) in diameter and up to 15 meters (49 ft) in depth. Shortly after the discovery, large quantities of this meteorite were removed from the area, and over the years the site has been almost completely cleaned. As a result, most of the area has been closed by the government and collecting is forbidden now.

On September 2, 1967 at 10:46 p.m. local time a large meteorite shower fell East of Wiluna in an elliptical area 5 x 3 kilometres. It is estimated that 500 to 1000 stones hit the ground. The Western Australian Museum has 480 stones and others are in private hands. The Wiluna meteorite is classified as an H5 chondrite meteorite. This specimen was recovered during the search organized by the Western Australia Museum shortly after the fall. The specimen bears the painted collection number 12934 137 which indicates the 137st individual collected from the Wiluna meteorite fall.

Moldavite glasses formed 15 million years ago during the impact of a giant meteorite in present-day Nördlinger Ries. Splatters of rocks that were melted by the impact cooled and most fell in south Bohemia – traversed by Vltava river, in German: Moldau, hence its name. They are a type of tektite and impactite. Although the event occurred in Germany, most specimens are found in Czech Republic due to the trajectory of the impact. This specimen is still on its original matrix.