Hello Svend and all, I put on-line on my site some photos which illustrates your comments as regards the description of the meteorite fallen in the erg Chech.
Best wishes, Philippe Thomas http://www.meteoritica.com/ As Greg has already pointed out on the list earlier the Chergach/Erg Chech or "Mali" material as it has been dubbed by sellers can be clearly distinguished from e.g. Benguerir, Amgala, Bensour and Bassikounou by comparing broken or cut surfaces. "Mali" has a dark ash grey color with meandering unevenly distributed blueish areas that often enclose dark grey patches, "Mali" is brecciated and diplays clasts full of very small but distinct chondrules. "Mali" shows no black shock veining as for example in Bassikounou. Unless the Bassikounou fall did not drop a second hitherto unknown lithology these two are clearly separate events. I will later post some comparison pictures on my website. With completely crusted individuals separation is difficult. The genuine "Mali" material I have seen however did not show any soil staining and was completely lacking the red laterite dust that can be found on many of the Bassikounou specimens. Differention by the grade of wheathering is not possible. Both falls are to recent for that. As to your question, I have the impression that the new material can safely be ordered from several resellers in Morocco. Upon request I can recommend a number uf reliable sources in Morocco to you. All my Chergach ("Mali") material I have purchased directly from Morocco was genuine material from a different event then the ones mentioned above. In Munich I purchased a 125gm oriented fragment among some genuine "Mali" stones and that particular specimen by close inspection turned out to be a Bassikounou. The same seller also offered me a another piece as "Mali" that I had already described in the Bassikounou catalog and that could clearly be recognized by its bright red impact marks. On the other hand this same seller had a number of splendid regmaglypted individuals in the kg range on his table that could easily and without doubt be recognized as from the Chergach strewfield by examining the broken surfaces. The cause of the confusion in my opinion has to do with the complete lack of confirmed intelligence on the "Mali" event. The makeshift name "Mali" already indicates the misery that neither an exact date nor exact coordinates were available for this fall in the beginning when the distribution started. The information provided by A. Habibi that the distribution ellipse is located near Chergach in the Erg Chech did not yet make it to most of the sellers offering the new material in Munich. At least on request they could not tell you anything about the origin of their "Mali" material. I'll post any emerging insights on this on my page and I encourage everyone to share their knowledge as well, as it would be a great loss if the background of this beautiful meteorite remains a mystery. Svend ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
