Amhirich        28.9828°N, 10.0779°W

Guelmim-Smara, Morocco

Find: 2013 Mar 12

Classification: HED achondrite (Howardite)

History: Ali Salm, a taxi driver in Guelmim, and amateur meteorite hunter, went hunting for meteorites close to the city of Guelmim on March 12, 2013. Arriving south of a hill about 100 m west of souk Amhirich (Amhirich market) he found a broken stone looking like a meteorite. He brought it back to Habib Naji, a meteorite dealer in Guelmim, in order to have it authenticated. Habib N. took some pictures and collected the information about the find. He sent a reference sample to Albert Jambon in Paris.

Physical characteristics: One fragile, broken stone, covered with remnants of a dark-brown fusion crust, orange colored where the crust is missing. Light-gray breccia with lithic (basaltic) and crystal clasts up to several mm. A few pyroxene crystals are exsolved.

Petrography: Polymict breccia with mm-sized clasts of low- and high-Ca pyroxene (a few of them exsolved). Plagioclase, minor olivine, and silica are also present. A few impact-melted basaltic clasts with tiny metal inclusions occur as well. The impact melt is partially crystallized. Dominant pyroxene (70 vol%), plagioclase (23 vol%), plus chromite. Diogenitic fraction estimated at about 30 vol%.

Geochemistry: Dominant pyroxenes: Fs₃₇Wo₂ (FeO/MnO =33) and Fs₄₉Wo₂₅(FeO/MnO= 46). Eucritic olivine Fa₄₆ (FeO/MnO= 70). Variable compositions of plagioclase from diogenitic (An₈₀) to eucritic (An₉₅). Silica. Typical diogenitic chromite (Cr₂O₃= 60%).

Classification: Howardite

Specimens: Main mass with Habib Naji