Why Giant Chinguetti Meteorite Remains Missing Since 1916?

Researchers are baffled at how a giant meteorite has already remained missing for over a century. However, a new team of scientists believes there are numerous reasons why they still haven't found it.

Why It's Difficult To Find Giant The Giant Chinguetti Meteorite

A 4.5 kg (10 lb) stony-iron boulder was purportedly removed in 1916 from the summit of an enormous iron mountain in Africa that measured 100 meters by 328 feet and was considered a massive meteorite. The existence of this larger parent meteorite has never been proven despite multiple searches.

Maps of magnetic anomalies, such as big blocks of iron, will be used by scientists from Imperial College London and the University of Oxford in the UK to search for this iron mountain, which, if it exists, would constitute the largest meteorite on Earth by some distance.

Captain Gaston Ripert, a French consular official, initially found the smaller meteorite rock. He claimed that a local chieftain had blindfolded him and led him to the "iron hill."

The neighboring city of Chinguetti in Mauritania, northwest Africa, inspired the meteorite's name. Until the 1990s, every attempt to locate the enormous iron mountain of which it was originally a part had failed.

Previous searches may not have produced any results because the iron mountain was hidden by sand, the equipment was inaccurate, or Ripert's ambiguous directions led to the incorrect search area. All of them are plausible scenarios, according to a new study.

Most intriguingly, Ripert mentioned a particular feature on the Iron Hill. From his smaller meteorite sample, the captain reported discovering drawn-out metallic "needles" that he attempted in vain to remove with blows.

The paper's authors hypothesize that these ductile structures might represent nickel-iron phases referred to as "Thomson structures." It seems improbable that Ripert would have made up such an insight, as it was unheard of in 1916.

Based on Ripert's account of a half-day voyage, the researchers here employed digital elevation models, radar data, and interviews with local camel riders to narrow down the places where he might have been brought.

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The team has determined areas of interest by measuring the heights of dunes that might be hiding the massive meteorite. They have then asked Mauritania's Ministry of Petroleum Energy and Mines for aeromagnetic survey data for these places. That data has not yet been made accessible. Walking a perimeter around the area searching for the long-lost meteorite is an alternate strategy, although this could take several weeks.

"If the result is negative, the explanation of Ripert's story would remain unsolved, however, and the problems of the ductile needles and the coincidental discovery of the mesosiderite would remain," the researchers wrote.

Is Chinguetti Meteorite Really Missing?

A 2001 study suggested that the researchers may be looking for something that doesn't exist. Based on the chunk of stony-iron mesosiderite, it was impossible that it came from a 100-meter meteorite. The authors did a chemical analysis of the metal, and according to them, it could not have originated from a mass with a volume greater than 1.6 meters wide.

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