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New Martian Meteorite Found In The Sahara

Max Planck Institute for Chemistry
Mainz/Germany

Contact: Jutta Zipfel
Phone: +49-6131-305-297   Fax: +49-6131-371-290

August 14, 1998

A rock from the Red Planet: A new Martian meteorite found in the Sahara

The discovery of a new Martian meteorite was announced by Dr. Jutta Zipfel
from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz. Members of the
institute' staff classified this meteorite based on results from mineralogy,
chemistry, and inert gas analyses. An official announcement was made during
the 61st Meteoritical Society meeting in Dublin 1998 which took place two
weeks ago.

Several observations make this finding exciting news and are an enrichment of
meteoritical sciences. This meteorite is the first Martian meteorite found in
the hot desert climate of the Sahara. It is the first one found since 1994 and
also the first since the discussion whether there is life on Mars began two
years ago. Now, the number of Martian meteorites has increased to a total of
13, a small number if compared to the total of more than 20,000 meteorite
specimens known so far. A fragment of the meteorite was given to the Max
Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz by a private finder for scientific
purposes. The rock weighs a little over 2 kg and is shaped like a loaf of
bread.

During a five-minute speech, Zipfel presented results from inert gas, chemical
and mineralogical studies. The inert gas inventory of the atmosphere of Mars
is very characteristic and well known from the Viking mission measurements on
the surface of Mars in 1976. This is, so far, the strongest evidence that
meteorites having this inert gas fingerprint must come from Mars. Inert gases
present in this meteorite clearly puts it in the group of Martian meteorites.
Typical elemental ratios obtained by bulk chemical analyses of a chip of the
new meteorite soon confirmed this finding. In addition, mineral chemistry and
petrographic observations, such as the presence of feldspathic glass, rounded
out the picture. 'We had no doubt that this was a Martian meteorite,' said
Zipfel, who made the announcement at the MSM in Dublin.

During the meeting, Zipfel gave British scientists from the Open University
a 150 mg sample for analysis of the oxygen isotopic composition of the
meteorite. These measurements were carried out one week after the Dublin
announcement and their results are consistent with findings obtained by the
Max Planck scientists.

Inert gas analyses show that this meteorite was ejected from Mars about 1
million years ago, marking an ejection event unknown from other Martian
meteorites, said Zipfel in her presentation. After that, the meteorite took
its time to travel through space before it was captured by the gravity of the
Earth and landed in Northern Africa. It was collected there in May of this
year and immediately brought to the German Max Planck Institute for
classification. The meteorite is the first find of its group in a hot desert
environment. Clearly, it carries along with it its desert history, in that it
is penetrated throughout by veins filled with terrestrial weathering products.
'The search for past evidence of life in this meteorite will be severely
impeded because it was lying in the hot desert for probably thousands of years
and not in a relatively sterile environment such as Antarctica', said Zipfel.
However, it will give scientists the opportunity to gain further knowledge
about geochemical processes on Mars and new insights into its evolution as a
planet.

The chemical study of Martian meteorites and their implications for the bulk
composition of Mars has a long tradition with scientists from the Max Planck
Institute for Chemistry in Mainz. Their development of the APXS instrument
was selected by NASA's Mars "Pathfinder Mission". Measurements with this
instrument made it possible for the first time to analyse rocks sitting on
the surface of Mars.

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