NWA 7797, Mesosiderite
Here’s a beautiful, fresh mesosiderite with huge olivine crystals. 52.2 grams.
NWA 7798, Mesosiderite
Here’s another new mesosiderite from the Sahara. 20.5 grams.
NWA 7803, Mesosiderite
This cute stone doesn’t have a texture that resembles any other Northwest African mesosiderites I’ve seen. It’s also one of the least-weathered. …
NWA 7804, Mesosiderite
This find consisted of a fresh, oriented 331 gram mostly complete stone. Abundant olivine and pyroxene crystals are visible on the surface, …
Northwest Africa 176, Ungrouped
Northwest Africa 176 is an unusual ungrouped ~iron meteorite that appears to be more closely related to carbonaceous chondrites than to most …
Taza, Ungrouped Iron
Meteoritical Bulletin entry for Taza. Long story short, it’s an ungrouped iron with a germanium content an order of magnitude or so …
Tata, IIIAB
Tata, otherwise known as NWA 1430, consisted of a single 113 kilogram iron meteorite that was, honestly, pretty ugly. It had been …
Izarzar, H5
After hearing reports of a fireball in Morocco in late October of 2012, I kept an eye out for stones, but saw …
NWA 3202, IIAB
This hexahedrite isn’t too unusual, but it is pretty. And it’s fairly fresh; it has a partial heat-altered zone, contrary to the …
NWA 3204, IAB-sHL-anomalous
NWA 3204 is a pretty plessitic octahedrite with a fun shape; we initially thought that it might be a man-made artifact. Its …
NWA 3205, IAB-ungrouped
This iron turned out to be compositionally unusual, with a very high iridium content. The Meteoritical Bulletin says a bit more:
NWA 3206, IAB-sLH
This 176 gram disk-shaped iron is chemically a little odd and is structurally unique. It has a great microscopic pattern, but there’s …
NWA 3208, IIIAB
This iron is a highly shocked IIIAB — so shocked that its Thomson structure is almost completely erased. But, while preparing the …
NWA 7787, Iron
This 203 gram iron meteorite is one of the freshest and most beautiful to come out of Northwest Africa. It is unclassified …
NWA 8154, Ungrouped Iron
This is an odd one, with 3-dimensional graphite sprays. The Meteoritical Bulletin writeup contains a plethora of information: Paired irons include NWA …
NWA 8156, IVA
This is a pretty one to escape the saw; it’s fairly fresh, oriented, and has a fine pattern. It has a well-defined …
Morocco, 2011
Here are some photos from the trip.
NWA, Medium Octahedrite I
This 1,026 gram iron meteorite came from Said Haddany at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show in 2010. It appears to be …
NWA, Medium Octahedrite II
This iron appears to be a medium octahedrite, from the pattern visible through stress fractures in the fusion crust. It came from …
NWA, Coarse Octahedrite
This ~1 kilogram heat shield has some unusual features.
NWA, Hexahedrite
This is an oriented heat-shield with a few rhabdites visible on its surface (see last photo, center). So, it’s a IIAB, hexahedrite. …
NWA, Oriented Iron
This 267.5 gram heat-shield came from Aras Jonikas. When I first saw photos, it looked so smooth and round that I thought …
NWA 3197, anomalous howardite
This odd meteorite is a mix of a few different things: the typical HED eucritic and diogenitic material make up most of …
NWA 5363/5400, ungrouped achondrite
This meteorite is a primitive achondrite. It retained ~10% metal, some sulfides, and hasn’t changed much since it was a chondrite. It …
NWA 978, R3.8
There’s not much in the Meteoritical Bulletin other than the basic information: R3.8, S3, W2, total known weight: 722 grams. Of note: …
NWA 3159/6964, eucritic impact melt
This is a stunning meteorite. It is comprised of a mess of light eucritic clasts surrounded by rivers of vesicular black melt. …
NWA 6470, anorthositic regolith breccia
This wonderful meteorite is comprised mostly of vitrified 4.3 billion year old Lunar highlands rock. It’s a complex breccia with at least …
NWA 6497, polymict eucrite
This stone came already-cut from a dealer. It weighs 44.6 grams and is a brecciated eucrite. Of note — some clasts were …
NWA 7022, Lunar feldspathic breccia
The fusion-crusted and oriented ~385 gram main mass of Northwest Africa 7022 displays the meteorite’s two lithologies beautifully. The meteorite is a …
NWA 7034, Martian regolith breccia
This is a unique meteorite for a number of reasons. In a nutshell: 1) At ~4.4 billion years old, it is either …
NWA 7799, ureilite
This stone is a pretty one, destined to remain provisional and unclassified. Fortunately, the fusion crust and thinly crusted break reveal the …
NWA 2196, carbonaceous chondrite
This is a beautiful meteorite we obtained from Dean Bessey back in 2002. Dean sold a cut stone to us (100.38 grams …
NWA 7809, enstatite achondrite
This meteorite was initially classified as an aubrite, but Udry et al. took a closer look at this stone and a few …
NWA 7831, diogenite
This meteorite isn’t even approved yet, but it’s a stunning diogenite comprised mostly of translucent, crystalline orthopyroxene. I don’t know of any …
NWA, enstatite crystal
This stone is a single large enstatite crystal, presumably from an aubrite. It weighs 77 grams, and is comprised of two fitting …
NWA, howardite
22 gram fresh HED with gemmy green pyroxene crystals. Stones like this aren’t too special today, but, back in the late 1990s …
NWA, ureilite
This beautiful, slightly fluted heat shield is probably a ureilite. 505 grams. Thanks to Mohammed Ismaily.
NWA 6494, H/L3
This cute stone came from Rob Elliott some years ago. From his photos, it was easy to tell that the stone was …
NWA 6500, LL3.8
290.5 gram windowed stone, main mass.
NWA 6504, L3.6
I don’t have much to add to the write-up; this stone was purchased already-cut from a dealer. When it is polished, many …
NWA 6505, CK4
This stone was classified as a CK4, S2, Wi 4 (Wi stands for the new weathering index determined for CK chondrites by …
NWA 6506, CV3
Here’s a pretty one — nice chondrules. The end pictured was used for the type specimen. Link to Meteoritical Bulletin:
NWA 6507, CR2
While perusing eBay one day, an armored chondrule poking through the fusion crust of an unclassified stone caught my eye. The 5.1 …
NWA 6508, EL3
NWA 6508 was purchased as an unclassified NWA meteorite on eBay in September of 2009. The seller had cut it in half, …
NWA 6509, LL3.6
Here’s a pretty stone from Northwest Africa.
Tiglit, aubrite
As of 2023, Tiglit is one of 11 witnessed aubrite falls, and it’s ~the only one collectors can obtain fusion-crusted individuals of. …
Tissint, depleted olivine-phyric shergottite
On July 18, 2011, a fireball was witnessed near a town called Tata, in Morocco. Sonic effects were heard by the sparsely …
NWA 7406, EL3
EL3’s are extraordinarily rare. This stone is one of the four approved non-Antarctic EL3’s, as of 2020. Here’s the main mass of …
NWA 7411, CV3
This brick of a meteorite is a specimen that we bring to every outreach event. Chondrules, big CAIs, it’s perfect. And it’s …
NWA 7634, carbonaceous chondrite
This ~850 gram carbonaceous chondrite is something of an enigma. The original classification was “CO3,” with a description that described it as …
NWA 7669, LL3
This oriented stone has nice flow lines and what appears to be a huge type B CAI in the cut face, which …
NWA 7715, H6
Initial work suggested this stone was an H7. It was later shown to be an H6. The main mass weighs a little …
NWA 7789, LL3.1-LL6
This stunning 8.2 kilogram polymict breccia was recovered as a broken individual. We don’t usually cut stones much, but this stone began …
NWA 7800, R-chondrite
This 45 gram stone is one of the freshest rumuruti chondrites found. Glimmering sulfides can be seen on all surfaces. Mottled matrix …
NWA 7802, CM2
This CM2 came from a Moroccan meteorite dealer several years ago. We finally got around to requesting a provisional number in late …
NWA 7805, CK4
This 45 gram oriented CK chondrite was purchased in 2011 from a Moroccan meteorite dealer.
NWA 7806, CO3
This complete stone has a wonderful shape and is quite fresh. More data when it comes…
NWA 7807, type-3 chondrite
This is a very cool meteorite originally sold to us as a pairing with NWA 801, a CR2. Two of the stones …
Northwest Africa 7892, CO3.0
This stone is one of the most pristine chondrites known. All carbonaceous and ordinary chondrites have experienced some thermal and aqueous alteration. …
NWA 8047, CM1
We had just missed out on another specimen from this find; I messaged the seller as soon as I saw his photo …
NWA 10085, K4
After a first round of analyses on the microprobe at UCLA, this stone left us with more questions than answers. It is …
NWA 10088, LL3
This stone’s total known weight is 209.6 grams and it has been classified as an LL3 S1 W4. This is the ~180 …
Northwest Africa, carbonaceous chondrite
This cute 12 gram stone is an unclassified carbonaceous chondrite that resembles CM’s most closely. However, it is very solid and moderately …
NWA xxxx, LL3.00
This meteorite is a fun one; I’m adding it because we’ve been dragging our feet about cutting it, and it’s pretty enough …
NWA, Unequilibrated Ordinary Chondrite
This stone is currently being analyzed. It’s definitely a fresh unequilibrated chondrite of some sort. Guesses have ranged from CR2 to LL3; …
NWA, Unequilibrated Ordinary Chondrite II
Northwest Africa has afforded collectors a rare opportunity to own specimens they otherwise would never be able to obtain. A fresh, complete, …
Northwest Africa, CV3
This beautiful stone with weathered fluting and flow lines was purchased in Erfoud from Mohamed Benzaki. 473.53 + 242.43 gram fitting fragments.
Northwest Africa, CO3
This fresh carbonaceous chondrite was purchased at Tucson, 2014. 493.9 grams
NWA, ordinary chondrite I
This ordinary chondrite has one of the nicer shapes I’ve seen; it’s concave, and flares to a point. It also has an …
NWA, ordinary chondrite II
This stone was one of the nicer ones we saw on our 2011 trip to Morocco. It’s flight-marked with flow-lines and lipping; …
NWA, ordinary chondrite III
At the 2019 Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, Moussa Minerals seemed to be everywhere: they had multiple tents set up at Kino Park, …
Oum Dreyga (Amgala), H3-5
Amgala was a small fall that occurred in a remote part of Western Sahara; the meteorite itself is a pretty breccia of …
Sidi Ali Ou Azza, L4
A bright bolide was seen over Eastern Morocco on July 28, 2015. Hunters set out and managed to find the first fresh …
Tarda, C2-ungr
Tarda is a rare ungrouped carbonaceous chondrite. Aqueously altered meteorites are a popular research topic right now, and a great deal of …