File:Erg Chech 002 — 5x Macro -5 (50866145188).jpg

Among life-long meteorite hunters, this is the most unusual discovery of late. It is almost entirely made up of crystals, with 60% of them being quartz. We’ve never seen more than trace amounts of quartz before. It must have formed deep in a planetary-sized body with lots of water. The slow cooling deep underground formed crystals upon crystals, some several cm long. The oxygen-isotope line does not match to any other meteorite (i.e., not Mars, moon or Vesta). Isotope dating research is ongoing; I can’t wait to see what they find.

Dr. Tony Irving of UW: <a href="https://www.cosmicmicroscapes.com/forum/about-meteorites/erg-chech-002-a-unique-sodic-achondrite-perhaps-from-a-destroyed-ancient-planet-1" rel="noreferrer nofollow">Erg Chech 002: A Unique Sodic Achondrite Perhaps From a Destroyed Ancient Planet</a>: “Sodium-rich mafic (Mg-Fe-rich) igneous rocks are rare, even on planet Earth. In May 2020 a very different sort of plutonic igneous achondrite was found in the Erg Chech sand sea located in far southern Algeria near the mutual borders with Mali and Mauritania. This unique unbrecciated achondrite is composed predominantly of a gabbroic lithology (composed mainly of pigeonite and sodic plagioclase), but it is striking because of the sporadic presence of large (up to 9 cm) megacrysts (more accurately xenocrysts) of various sorts of green to yellow-green pyroxene (augite, orthopyroxene, pigeonite), which exhibit embayed shapes and compositionally-different reaction rims against the dominant groundmass.

Based on the available data (but with much more to be revealed from further studies) we believe that this achondrite may be derived ultimately from a previously unsampled differentiated, planet-like parent body, possibly one that suffered collisional destruction and dispersion of its crustal rocks early in solar system history. The specimens now under study may have been ejected more recently from remnants of that catastrophic event, which were fortuitously captured into orbit within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.”

It looks incredible in <a href="https://www.meteorite-times.com/erg-chech-002-achondrite-ung/" rel="noreferrer nofollow">polarized light</a>, where each crystal orientation can be visualized distinctly. There is even an <a href="https://www.cosmicmicroscapes.com/erg-chech-002" rel="noreferrer nofollow">art site</a> dedicated to this beauty.