How Morocco Became the Meteorite Hunting Capital of the World

In the world The most famous meteorite show, in Enseim in France, I noticed that there were many dealers from Morocco. Unlike most Europeans and Americans, who had exhibition covers, labels and books, Moroccan kiosks were minimalistic. Perhaps a white leaf covered with lumps of reddish-brown stones. A couple of scales. Sometimes a sheet of paper at prices per kilogram written in Biro. Only in England did I learn about Sugar gold fever.

Since 1999, the number of meteorites found in Morocco exploded. The number officially recognized exceeds a thousand – although this is described by scientists as “gross underestimations”. For comparison, in the UK there are only 23 falls and finds.

“You must talk to Hasnaa,” dealer Darril Pitt wrote to me. “She tried – and successfully succeeded – she turned the chaos of trading a meteorite in North Africa into something more ordered.” This was not the first time her name appeared.

HASNAA CHENNAOUI AUUDJEHENE, professor at the University of Casablanca Hassan II, is used to be strangers in the room. At the meetings of the Committee of the Meteoritic Society for the Nomenclature of the Meteorite, a group entrusted to officially calling the recognized meteorites, she was a member, “a unique representative of any Arab or Muslim country.” (She remains a consultant to the committee.) When I spent the export subject of Morocco, she groaned. “The situation with Moroccan meteorites is crazy,” she says. “This is unethical.”

By the end of the last century, several factors united to make Morocco a meteorite with a hot point. First, climate and geography. Having allowed the difference in the total area of ​​the surface, the meteorite with the same probability will land in the highlands of Scotland, as in the Sahara, but in the first it will be much more difficult to find – heather, rocks – and “land” will be “ground”. Much faster – rain, dirt, snow. Most (although not all) meteorites reach land with exterior from dark crust. In sugar, such stones stand out against sand.

Secondly, in Morocco there was already a network of Western fossils, mineral and archaeological hunters and dealers, while many Moroccans are members of nomadic groups, in particular, they were highly qualified in the search for stones and artifacts in the desert. When I walked with my herd, I looked at the ground, ”the nomad explained to the journalist from the Middle East. The stone business, he said, saved many nomadic families from poverty.

Thirdly, the legal and geopolitical situation in Morocco helped the situations. “We, thank God, a peaceful country,” says Chennai. “This is something unique in the region.” Here (relatively) it is safe to wander through sugar sands in search of stones. In addition, there was no allocated regulation of the country’s meteorites. If you found a meteorite in Morocco, this was probably due to how you liked it.

The American dealer Michael Gilmer states the Sugar gold fever in the mid-1990s. Foreign dealers quickly discovered that non -classified meteorites can be purchased from Moroccan traders at very low prices, officially analyzed in the West and sold for significant profits.

The city of Erfud in the southeastern region of the Drai-Tafilalet Morocco, known as the “gate in the Sahara”, has become the center of those who hope to make money from meteorites. The visitor will find stores selling meteorites and fossils, some with small special museums. Some nomads diversified to bring tourists and collectors to the desert to look for stones.