Unusual finds by South African farmer Gideon Lombaard adds to the country’s — and the world’s — meteorite heritage.
Meteorites — fragments of rock that have fallen to Earth from space in spectacularly fiery meteors — have been the subject of public fascination, awe,by many countries as an integral part of communal natural heritage and are sought after by museums and private collectors.
Mr Lombaard’s double discovery raises South Africa’s tally of confirmed meteorites to 51 – the highest in sub-Saharan Africa. Namibia has 18 confirmed meteorites,12, Zimbabwe four, and Lesotho and eSwatini one each. But, compared with the over 14,000 meteorites recovered from the Sahara desert, the number of recovered southern African meteorites is extremely small. A concerted national meteorite education awareness and search programme could thus reap great benefits.
Mr Lombaard discovered the two meteorites during routine farming activities. The Brierskop meteorite is a 21.19g chondrite which he found on 18 September 2018. Chondrites are the oldest rocks in our solar system, dating back 4.567 billion years. It was only after he found the Wolfkop stone 1km away from the Brierskop site on 27 August 2021 that he reached out to determine whether these were, as he suspected, meteorites.
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