[meteorite-list] re: BAZA DESSERT??? (slightly OT)

From: Marco Langbroek <marco.langbroek_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:16:37 2004
Message-ID: <00c901c36cda$27dc1170$80cc86c2_at_HAL>

> From: "Steve Arnold, Chicago!!!" <steve_arnol60120_at_yahoo.com>
> Subject: [meteorite-list] BAZA DESSERT???
>
> He is trying to auction off 4 spain
> irons.They said, they are from the " BAZA DESSERT".Dessert????? Sounds
> like he has been eating to much dessert.I did not even know that spain had
> a desert.Maybe portugal??How about the ocean??

Hi Steve,

Technically speaking Spain has no real desert (and certainly not Portugal,
which
is much more oceanic), but the southeast corner of Spain where Baza is, is
very close to it: its annual precipitation is only just above 200 mm,
it is a semi-arid steppe although it's outlook in some parts is quite like
desert.
Tabernas, 50 km southeast of Baza, is the driest spot in
Europe. I've visited that area on a couple of occasion, last in November
2002, and you really could think driving through Arizona there - (the area
around Tabernas reminds me of the area near the Petrified Forest) in fact,
it
is the area where a lot of spaghetti-westerns have been filmed and there is
a wild-west town replica there complete with fortress for that purpose, near
the town of Sorba. In the extreme southeast point of Almeria province in
Spain the landscape actually looks quite Morrocan - and indeed, not much
kilometers between Marocco and that part of Europe! Take a look in the
"travel & adventure pictures" gallery
(http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek/gallery.html) on my website for a
few pics taken in this part of the globe during the November 2002 visit (we
were there to watch the Leonid meteor storm) and marvel about this quite
un-European landscape. Especially around Tabernas, the desert-like landscape
is even more aparent than from these few pictures (the bottom one is taken
at Tabernas).
I do not know of any meteorite finds there (and indeed would be cautious
with these eBay items) but it might be one of the best places in Europe to
search for them as it is the closet we Europeans have to a desert landscape.

- Marco


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Marco Langbroek

marco.langbroek_at_wanadoo.nl
meteorites_at_dmsweb.org
http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek

"What seest thou else
 In the dark backward and abysm of time?"

                            William Shakespeare
                            The Tempest act I scene 2
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Received on Wed 27 Aug 2003 04:31:07 PM PDT