Meteorite collections can head down a lot of interesting paths. Some folks focus on collecting aesthetic pieces, others only irons, meteorites from their home state is a common theme as is focusing on witnessed falls from your country. I remember early on when I had just started collecting, reading an article that warned against going into collecting without a focus. I can honestly say my collection interests have fractured and gone in no less than four or five directions, and that fracturing has helped to keep my interest in the hobby piqued. Making sure pieces fit in with a focus ensures you have meteorite budget around for when that truly desired piece becomes available, and you aren’t looking at empty wallet and a pile of random meteorites that don’t have much meaning to you.
I wanted to start an article series on some of the various focuses of meteorite collection, and though, might as well start with the most niche and maybe most unique focus within my collection. My hats off to anyone who can guess what the following meteorites have in common: Morasko, Oum Dreyga and, Kheneg Ljouad?
The answer is they all have ties to the military. The military is near and dear to my heart, so it’s just natural that when I found out the story behind Morasko reading Buchwald’s Handbook of Iron Meteorites, I naturally wanted to get a piece, and that blossomed into a new focus as I tried to figure out if there were any other meteorites around with a military related story. Doing a text search in the Metbul for either “Soldier” or “Military” turns up 15 results (Morasko isn’t on the list and I removed the duplication of Kheneg Ljouad which contains both terms). So here are a few of the more interesting mentions:
I’ll start with Morasko the one that started this obscure obsession. The original mass of Morasko, a 77.5 Kg piece, was a cold find, discovered by Dr. Cobliner. At the time he was serving in the German Army as an Engineer working on fortification near the town of Morasko in 1914. A small piece was sent off to Berlin for assessment where it was determined to be meteoric in origin; it’s now classified as an IAB- Main Group Iron. The original found mass, still resides on display at the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
The following are some of the more interesting snippets from the Meteoritic Bulletin:
Oum Dreyga is a witnessed fall with an interesting story.
On 16 October 2003, Moroccan soldiers stationed in Western Sahara saw a meteorite falling on Gour Lafkah Mountains, south of Zbayra, about 21 km from Oum Dreyga. The meteorite fell near a 670 km long wall built in 1985, protected by antipersonnel mines, and guarded by soldiers. Not sure I will ever say the places I hunt are “difficult” anymore…
Kheneg Ljouad is another Morrocan meteorite that landed in a militarized zone.
The fall site is in a militarized area within Morocco, but close to the border with Algeria. Military and nomads were the first to arrive at the fall site and the first piece was found within 12 hours of the fireball, on 13 July. A field mission was organized by H. Chennaoui Aoudjehane (FSAC), M. Aoudjehane, A. Bouferra and H. El Harbi on Saturday, 15 July to collect the fall information and samples for classification and the submission. The team were granted authorization to enter the militarized area, and on 16 July traveled to the fall site.
Morocco does not have a monopoly on meteorites, or minefields apparently… Cerro del Inca is a IIIF iron from Chile.
A 20.6 kg iron meteorite was found in the Atacama Desert by soldiers surveying a mine field with metal detectors.
Beni M’hira at 19 Kg TKW is not too hard of a meteorite to get a hold of.
A meteorite was seen to fall in the Beni M’hira region by the inhabitants of Ksar Beni M’hira, a small village ~35 Km E of Foum Tataouine, (SE Tunisia). Three fragments weighing 1720, 300, and 200 g were recovered after the fall by local soldiers. An additional 7 pieces totalling >14 Kg were later recovered by private finders.
Tartak is a 7.6 Kg single piece recovery in Poland, that likely was more of a valuable find than the antique WWII munition initially being sought. Public service announcement, stay away from unexploded ordnance.
The meteorite was found during a search for military armaments from WW II.
Below are a few of the pieces that comprise my military focused part of the collection. In addition to some of the above locations I was able to acquire I also added a piece of Alta’Ameem, Iraq, and Qatar 001 as reminders of the places the military had deployed me to.
