[meteorite-list] When the Sahara was wetter (relevant to your interests)

[Darren Garrison]

On Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:13:18 EDT, you wrote:


>  I too have considered the effects of a wetter sahara and how it  affected 

>meteorites.It is unreal how many meteorites comes out of that desert  and all 

>the others seem to only give up a few.I am glad they do come out and  give us a 

>chance to study and compare to the pitiful little earth rocks we  find.


My meteorite collecting (and, really, awareness that there even is a meteorite
collecting market) began after the Sahara "gold rush" started, and my collection
strongly reflects that.  How old those really weathered meteorites coming out of
NWA are is interesting (and a data point in determining fall rate).  I already
knew that the Sahara was much wetter in the past-- but a data point that it was
much wetter as recently as 4,500 years ago is interesting-- and I would think it
would push the possible age for the weathered meteorites forwards (some, I
believe, have been estimated to be 10s of thousands of years old).