An article about the Chinguetti meteorite from Science Alert. The basic story, per the article:
The 4.5-kilogram (10 pound) stony-iron rock was reportedly taken from the top of a giant 100-meter-wide (328 foot) iron mountain – suggested to be a huge meteorite – in Africa back in 1916.
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... the smaller meteorite chunk was originally recovered by French consular official Captain Gaston Ripert, who said he'd been blindfolded and guided to the 'iron hill' by a local chieftain.
The meteorite was named after the nearby city of Chinguetti, in Mauritania, northwest Africa. All subsequent attempts to find the giant iron mountain that it was originally a part of, right up to the 1990s, haven't been able to find the spot where Ripert was taken to.
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Past searches may have turned up nothing because the iron mountain had been covered by sand, or because the instruments used weren't accurate, or because the search area was in the wrong place based on Ripert's vague instructions. These are all possibilities, the scientists say in a new paper.
Perhaps most interestingly, Ripert specifically described a feature on the iron hill. The captain described finding drawn out metallic 'needles' that he unsuccessfully tried to remove with blows from his smaller meteorite sample.
The authors of the paper speculate that these ductile structures could be phases of nickel-iron known as 'Thomson structures'. Unheard of in 1916, it's unlikely Ripert would have fabricated such an observation.
Researchers believe they have narrowed down the area where the parent meteor is located and could pinpoint it with modern instruments. They are awaiting approval from the Mauritania government to conduct the search.
Cool!
ReplyDeleteI know. Didn't Marvel make a movie about something like this? Something about Wakanda and vibranium?
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