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Oued Awlitis 001
Basic information Name: Oued Awlitis 001
     This is an OFFICIAL meteorite name.
Abbreviation: OA 001
Observed fall: No
Year found: 2014
Country: Western Sahara
Mass:help 433 g
Classification
  history:
Meteoritical Bulletin:  MB 103  (2014)  Lunar
Recommended:  Lunar    [explanation]

This is 1 of 105 approved meteorites classified as Lunar.   [show all]
Search for other: Lunar meteorites
Comments: Approved 6 Jul 2014
Writeuphelp
Writeup from MB 103:

Oued Awlitis 001 (OA 001)        25.954°N, 12.493°W

Western Sahara

Found: 2014 Jan 15

Classification: Lunar meteorite

History: (A. Irving and M. Aid) In January 2014 a group of eight people traveling in two cars were returning northward after an unsuccessful meteorite hunting trip to southern Morocco, when they stopped near Oued Awlitis to cook dinner by the roadside. During a search for firewood, Mr. Zaid Oussaid found a buried piece of dead tree trunk, but he could not excavate it by hand. With the use of a pickaxe he was able to pull the wood out of the ground, but he then noticed beside it in the cavity a flat ellipsoidal, brownish gray rock coated by glossy translucent crust with anastomozing wrinkle ridges. Upon returning to his home (at Dwar Ait Gazo, 30 km west of Tagounite), Mr. Oussaid showed the 382 g specimen to Mr. Mohamed Aid, who organized a return trip to the find site on February 21, 2014, and after a search of the area an additional 50.5 g piece which fits exactly onto the main stone was found about 50 m away.

Physical characteristics: (A. Wittmann, WUSL, and A. Irving, UWS) A very fresh specimen (total weight 432.5 g, approximate dimensions 7.7 × 6.6 × 3.5 cm) with a pale yellow-brown, translucent fusion crust exhibiting a darker network of anastomozing wrinkle ridges on the surface. Small, yellow-white components are visible through the fusion crust, and chipped parts of the stone reveal a whitish-gray interior. A cut sample surface exhibits a fine-grained, wavy texture of gray mineral phases in a groundmass consisting of intergrown domains of anhedral, grayish-white minerals. Rare rounded, up to 2 mm, white domains occur that appear homogenous, and represent possible vesicle fills of secondary minerals.

Petrography: (A. Wittmann, WUSL; A. Irving, UWS) Crystallized, clast-rich melt rock with a poikilitic texture of intensely fractured olivine and pyroxene crystals that fill interstitial spaces between 5 to 50 μm, euhedral plagioclase phenocrysts. This crystallized melt groundmass envelops partly assimilated, strongly undulous, <1 mm plagioclase clasts that are distinguished by irregular and sub-planar fractures in lensoid, relict domains. In places, these plagioclase clasts contain 10 μm, euhedral domains of silica polymorph and commonly contain planar deformation features. Up to 10 μm kamacite and taenite crystals, and up to 70 μm troilite crystals that are in places intergrown, occur in the plagioclase clasts and in the poikilitic groundmass. Euhedral, <10 μm grains of ilmenite and Ti-Fe rich spinel are in some regions intergrown and contain <<1 μm domains of FeNi metal. Small shock melt pockets occur as <0.1 mm pods, or as <10 μm thick veins that offset the crystal fabric. Light brown, vesicular fusion crust (up to 150 μm thick on one side of the studied thin section and 0.5 mm thick on the other side) is composed of glass containing sparse whisker phenocrysts. A single ~10 μm wide, irregular fracture is filled with brown clay minerals, but no other terrestrial alteration phases were observed in the thin section.

Geochemistry: (A. Wittmann, P. Carpenter and R. Korotev, WUSL; S. Kuehner, UWS) Plagioclase phenocrysts in crystallized melt groundmass, An95–97Or0–0.2, n=13; plagioclase in relict clasts, An88–97Or0–0.3, n=18; olivine, Fa30–44, molar Fe/Mn=81–151, n=13; pigeonite, Fs26–40Wo6–19, molar Fe/Mn=45–74, n=10; subcalcic augite, Fs20–24Wo25–34, molar Fe/Mn=41–61, n=5; spinel, (Mg0.07–0.11Mn0.01Fe2+0.87–0.92) (Fe3+0.73-0.88Al0.13–0.22 Si0.01-0.05Ti0.65–0.8Cr0.16–0.34), n=5; ilmenite, 2.1 wt% MgO, n=2; troilite, 0.08–0.1 wt% Ni, n=3; kamacite, 6.8–7.6 wt% Ni, 0.8–0.9 wt% Co, n=3; taenite, 11.5–24.1 wt% Ni, 0.7–1.2 wt% Co, n=5.

Classification: Lunar (anorthositic melt rock).

Specimens: 20.1 g including one polished thin section at UWB. The remaining material is held by M. Aid.

Data from:
  MB103
  Table 0
  Line 0:
Origin or pseudonym:Oued Awlitis
Date:2014 Jan 15
Latitude:25.954°N
Longitude:12.493°W
Mass (g):432.5
Pieces:2
Class:Lunar
Shock stage:moderate
Weathering grade:very low
Fayalite (mol%):30-44
Ferrosilite (mol%):26-40; 20-24
Wollastonite (mol%):6-19; 25-34
Classifier:A. Wittmann, P. Carpenter and R. Korotev, WUSL
Type spec mass (g):20.1
Type spec location:UWB
Main mass:M. Aid
Finder:M. Oussaid
Comments:MA150; submitted by A. Irving
Institutions
   and collections
UWS: University of Washington, Department of Earth and Space Sciences, 70 Johnson Hall, Seattle, WA 98195, United States (institutional address; updated 15 Jan 2012)
WUSL: Washington Univ., One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, United States (institutional address; updated 17 Oct 2011)
UWB: University of Washington, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Box 353010 Seattle, WA 98195, United States (institutional address; updated 9 Oct 2023)
Catalogs:
References: Published in Meteoritical Bulletin, no. 103, MAPS 52, 1014, May 2017, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/maps.12888/full
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Geography:

Western Sahara
Coordinates:
     Recommended::   (25° 57' 14"N, 12° 29' 35"W)

Statistics:
     This is 1 of 280 approved meteorites from Western Sahara (plus 20 unapproved names)
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