|
||||||||
|
South Morocco and Western Sahara |
| Spring is the best time to visit Morocco, we have made a trip to the far South of this country, the Western Sahara, in April 1999 and found some new meteorites on the Lahmada plateau and near a place named Jdiriya.
The South Moroccan and Western Sahara regions cannot compare to the Algerian and Libyan stretches where the major Saharan strewnfields Acfer, Dar al Gani, Hammada al Hamra are located |
| To reach the Western Sahara, you must drive across Morocco from North to South. Morocco is a very touristic and accessible country with various landscapes. You are not yet in the real Sahara desert. The great cedar forests near Ifrane always provide nice places to bivouac along small rivers. The "Haut Atlas" south of Marrakech is a mountain covered with snow during all the winter months and with many summits rising more than 4000 m (13000 feet). We always spend a few days visiting this region prior to travelling to the great palm grove of Zagora on the Draa river (called oued Draa) and approaching the first signs of desert. In fact, the Algerian border, which is 80 km South of Zagora is the real beginning of the great African desert : the Sahara. |
|
|
Michelin map, scale 1 cm for 40 km |
| The Oued Draa river has its beginnings in the Atlas mountains. After Zagora it becomes a vast plain nowadays almost perpetually dry. Sand covers this area which stretches from Tagounite to the Atlantic coast 750 km away (460 miles). It marks the border between Morocco and Algeria. The deserts surrounding this area are occupied by some tens of thousands of nomads representing various tribes. |
|
Zagora palm grove on sunset |
|
During our stop in Zagora, a very nice town with an airport and hotels, we drive sixty kilometers South to Tagounite, a small town with a school and palm grove situated midway on the road between Mhamid and Zagora. The road runs across a sand plain amongst black hills. |
|
To increase the price of NWA meteorites with unknown location which reach South Morocco, dealers have invented false strewnfieds around the towns of Zagora, Tagounite and all the border localities. Meteorites are coming from Algeria but are often sold as Moroccan finds:
There is no meteorite Eldorado in south Morocco, you will find only data lost, smugglers and fraud. Today, this business is responsible for the loss of all scientific information on meteorites as well as their respective strewnfield data. Without the location data collected, three-quarters of rare material will stay unrecovered in the desert, leaving irreparable damage for meteoritic science. |
 |
| South of this place is a no man's land between the two countries with military forts when you approach the border, so we stay on the Moroccan side to reach Zag. A recently build road links Foum-Zguid, Akka, Assa and Zag. You drive in large alluvial plains where there is almost no chance to discover any meteorite, the travel is easy and we have time to have a nap. |
|
The area we have choose to prospect is called Lahmada, |
|
| Our first hitch occured when we approached the town of Zag, which is militarized. Just a few years ago this region also called Western Sahara was the site of offensive actions and all the area is still under military control. They check our identity and don't want us to continue south. It's time to map out another route to reach the Lahmada plateau. At the end of the day, we have found a trail marked out with heap of soil, an old trail used by the Paris-Dakar rally, which takes us straight to the west of our prospecting spot. |
Lahmada 015 - chondrite H6 |
Looks like an old one but in fact all the samples that we have recovered on this area and which seem paired have a low weathering and show a fresh interior with clearly visible metal, shock veins and few chondrules. |
|
|
List of the samples :
|
 prospecting area, we have also found a hare (still in situ) near the Lahmada 016 |
The Lahmada plateau, situated less than 200 km (as the crow flies) from the sea, is in the wet part of the Sahara desert. The fauna include such varied species as many birds, rabbits and scorpions. The morning dew covered our vehicles. We decided not to spend all of our time on the Lahmada plateau as the main focus of our trip was to find new strewnfields. The second reason was that the entire area is a military weapons testing ground with old mine fields (few years ago a rally truck blew up on a mine), unexploded munitions, rockets and shells littered everywhere. |
|
As soon as we cross a potential soil, or a clear ground we make a search. On a little plateau 5 Km northwest of the deserted old village of Jdiriya we are lucky enough to find the meteorite below. |
 Jdiriya - weight 343gr - L5 publication Meteoritical Bulletin N°84 |
| April 24, 1999 : on sunset a fireball appears 45° above the horizon in southeast direction. We observed it for eight seconds as it loses brightness and fragments before disappearing 20° above the south horizon. |
Perhaps a new meteorite is arrived, but how long from here, hundred kilometers or more. We have gathered some but this one will stay for future hunters. For us it's time to have a break, the day after we reach a trail to Smara and the road to Laayoune a great and modern city. |
|
|
| There are some nice desert places on the Atlantic coast where you can purchase crayfish from local fishermen. Alternatively, you can hunt for your own mussels and shrimp. |
|
 |
