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www.niger-meteorite-recon.de
Libya 2004 - illustrated report
go to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Team | Area Map
Hammadah meteorite find in situ. The pitch black crusted 111 gram stone was spotted from a distance of 60 yards and has about the size of a golf ball.
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"In this part of the desert Al Samum, the hot wind from the northeast, blows day and night. When the wind turns south things get worse. Then the Uburi Sand Sea's glowing breath, haunts the plain as if a giant oven was combusting behind the southern horizon." |
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Unlike the Dar al Gani, the HaH is intersected by numerous queds and rocky slopes: natural obstacles that hamper any systematic large scale survey of the area. On our way north the next morning the free plain narrows towards a rise impassable for the Landcruiser. It takes us a few miles of scouting through winding gullies before we manage to climb on a perfect surface and start prospecting again. Hour by hour the martian-like scenery passes by in monochrome red. At noon we drive past the mummified cadaver of a camel. Its sun-parched skin is flapping against the bleached bones to the rhythm of the Samum.
As bundles of fresh tracks disturb the natural surface, we know the piste to Ghadames is close. Saleh joins the broad runway to the southeast to bring us to our nightcamp destination. The team is jaded. Since noon they have started seeing dschinns all over the place. To save resources I quit the search for today and so we speed up to reach unsearched terrain by nightfall. While Saleh interjects his new favorite song "It's a long way to Tipperary", I peer in the car's window opening for a better view. With the sun at our back the day might not be over yet.
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The extremely robust desert locust Schistocerca-Gregaria.
"And Moses stretched his rod over the land of Egypt and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night and when it was morning the east wind brought the locust." Exodus 10:13
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A few Tipperaries later, suddenly a black spot flashes by. No one else has seen it. Another deception? We've had enough of those today. Too many frustrations caused by galena and lydite pebbles spread abundantly over the western edge of the HaH. On the other hand, one could seize the opportunity of a brief halt, to take a cold sip from the ghirba. The waterskin is dangling outside in the airstream. The boys surely would need one too. No doubt they look pretty dry. A slap on the roof is the signal to turn about. Saleh sharply speeds down, turns slowly into our dust trail and drives back alongside the fresh tracks.
The sinking Sun is blinding. Six hundred yards passed and still nothing to be seen. Finally, there it is. Like one hundred times before, I grab my magnet and jump off the car. Bending down towards the rock I catch a swift glance and turn back towards the car by automatic reflex. But now I grasp the image: subtle contraction cracks on a pitch black velvet crust, appearing as fresh as if the thunderstone had fallen the previous night. "Alhamdulillah, huwa alraqum awwal", "We've just found our first meteorite" I call to the boys. As they see me kneeling in front of the fresh potato-sized stone, they break out cheering too.
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380 g main mass of the second find embedded in the sediment. 24 fragments were recovered in the wider perimeter, meteorite is most probably a type 4 chondrite (classification pending).
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The traveller from outer space chose his final resting place right on the piste, narrowly missed by a couple of 4WD tracks just a few yards away. Smoothly ablated, the rock shows slight orientation, disturbed only by a small, rougher flank covered with a fine layer of secondary crust. After a series of photos I lift the stone out of its dust bed. It's slightly magnetic. Later back home, the analysis by the Institute for Planetology of the University of Muenster will reveal its nature as type 3 unequilibrated chondrite with a short terrestrial residence time. Probably the fall occurred within the last five decades.
In high spirits we search for further fragments until Moonrise before we return to our camp which Ammul has erected on the exact location of the find. This night the boys insist on calling me "Abu Ah'schar", "The father of the stones".
www.niger-meteorite-recon.de
Libya 2004 - illustrated report
go to page: 1 | 2 |
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | Team | Area Map
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