NAVN: El Hammami

Vægt:

Købt af: Geotop

Samlet masse: Muligvis flere tons
Fundsted: Tiris Zemmour, Mauritanien
Fund: 1997 (Observeret fald 10.august 1997 ?)
Type: Chondrit H5, S2
Jern : Højt

Chondruler er stærkt varmeomdannede og noget svære at skelne. Olivinen er let skadede af stød.

Forvitring W:0-1 ?? Der ses lidt rustfarve men meteoritten er ikke forvitret nævneværdigt

En analyse analyse af et stykke af El Hammami viser, at den består af 45% allominosilicater, 25% kamacit (nikkel-jern med 6,7% nikkel), 24% olivin og pyroxen, og 6% troilit (FeS). Nogle korn indeholder Titanium, hvilket er sjældent i chondritter.

Der faldt adskillige store stykker. Faldet blev observeret af nomader og senere fundet. Uheldigvis brugte nomaderne mukkerter til at splitte de smukke men store meteoritter så de kunne transporteres af kamelerne, og desværre blev mange stykker stærkt farvede af kamel-sved. El Hammami er en meget smuk meteorit med en smuk lys grå-hvid grundmasse, en smuk smelteskorpe, nogle pæne mørke chondruler og TONS af lyst metal. (Fra Michael Farmers hjemmeside).

El Hammami
El Hammami
El Hammami
Foto: Arne Dich

As described by the finder, Edwin Thompson “This is a really neat meteorite with sheets of iron running through it, a light gray matrix that looks like good ole concrete and beautiful thick fresh black fusion crust. In some of the stones you can follow the iron vein through the matrix and into or across the fusion crust! There are lots of small chondrules showing on the broken surfaces and some of the chondrules are black which show up well against the gray matrix.

This meteorite represents a fun adventure for me that included seven days on camels, six days in a 2 ½ ton all terrain truck, food poisoning for five days and negotiating for 1 ½ days over the price of these rocks from the sky and getting arrested for taking pictures of an Algerian border crossing and losing all my film in the desert! I just want to know how Nomadic Berbers have any idea of the value of meteorites, we sat in that tent for almost two days, five meals and about 30 to 50 glasses of green leaf mint tea, haggling. I have been going to North Africa since 1972 and have learned the hard way that if you don't negotiate until it hurts then the people on the other side of the bargaining table have no respect for you.

The success wasn't that I got what I was there for, but that for several days after that I was treated like part of the family, this was the honor of a lifetime. Only one problem, when these wonderful people heard that I was coming to buy all their rocks they decided to get them ready for us to pack back home and so they took to them with tent spikes and hammers and made them all small enough to fit into the camel packs. You'll notice that every single piece is a fragment. In fact two of the fragments fit back together making half of what was a gorgeous oriented stone of around 6 to 8 kilos yes, grown men do cry."

El Hammami
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