The Tissint strewn field
Only the fifth Martian meteorite seen to fall, its glossy black stones gathered from a remote desert valley months later.
Key facts
- Fell
- 18 July 2011, about 2 in the morning
- Where
- near Tissint, Tata province, Morocco
- Recovered
- about 7 kilograms
- Field
- a desert area east of Tissint, several kilometres long
- Type
- Martian meteorite, shergottite
The fall
Nomads and villagers saw a bright fireball and heard booms in the night. Nothing was found until October, when local people began picking up stones with shiny black fusion crust.
The ellipse
The stones lay scattered across stony desert east of the village. Searchers, mostly local nomads and traders, combed the area once word spread.
Where the big and small pieces landed
About 7 kilograms were recovered, in stones from fragments of a gram up to about a kilogram. Because Tissint was collected within months, and from dry desert, it is among the freshest Martian rocks studied.
The law
Morocco treats meteorites as geological heritage, and since 2020 their collection and export have been regulated, with papers needed for legal export.
Related pages
Glossary: Strewn field, Strewn field map, Fusion crust, Meteorite ownership