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Chinguetti Meteorite
The Chinguetti meteorite is a find reputed to come from a large unconfirmed 'iron mountain' in Africa. The existence of a huge stony-iron mesosiderite approximately 45 kilometers from the Saharan city Chinguetti, Mauritania, has been a mystery since 1916, when Captain Gaston Ripert, a French consular official, claimed to have discovered 'a huge iron hill high and long.' Ripert said that he had been guided blindfolded by a local chieftain to a natural source of iron, after a 12-hour-long camel ride to the south-east of Chinguetti. He bagged a 4 kilogram fragment of the rock, which found its way to Paris some years later, where geologist Alfred Lacroix pronounced that it was an important discovery. However, despite the attempts of several expeditions since, the supposed meteorite could not be found again. Ripert wrote to Professor Théodore Monod in 1934: 'I know that the general opinion is that the stone does not exist; that to some, I am purely and simply an impostor who pick ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesosiderite
Mesosiderites are a class of stony–iron meteorites consisting of about equal parts of metallic nickel-iron and silicate. They are breccias with an irregular texture; silicates and metal occur often in lumps or pebbles as well as in fine-grained intergrowths. The silicate part contains olivine, pyroxenes, and Ca-rich feldspar and is similar in composition to eucrites and diogenites. They are a rare type of meteorite; as of November 2014 only 208 are known (of which 56 come from Antarctica) and only 7 of these are observed falls. On the other hand, some mesosiderites are among the largest meteorites known. At Vaca Muerta in the Atacama Desert in Chile, many fragments with a total mass of 3.8 tons were found in a large strewnfield. They were first discovered in the 19th century by ore prospectors who mistook the shiny metal inclusions for silver and thought they had found an outcrop of a silver ore deposit. Later when an analysis was made and nickel-iron was found, the true nature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mauritania
Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية الموريتانية), is a sovereign country in West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north and northwest, Algeria to the northeast, Mali to the east and southeast, and Senegal to the southwest. Mauritania is the 11th-largest country in Africa and the 28th-largest in the world, and 90% of its territory is situated in the Sahara. Most of its population of 4.4 million lives in the temperate south of the country, with roughly one-third concentrated in the capital and largest city, Nouakchott, located on the Atlantic coast. The country's name derives from the ancient Berber kingdom of Mauretania, located in North Africa within the ancient Maghreb. Berbers occupied what is now Mauritania ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinguetti
Chinguetti () ( ar, شنقيط, translit=Šinqīṭ) is a ksar and a medieval trading center in northern Mauritania, located on the Adrar Plateau east of Atar. Founded in the 13th century as the center of several trans-Saharan trade routes, this small city continues to attract a handful of visitors who admire its spare architecture, scenery, and ancient libraries. The city is seriously threatened by the encroaching desert; high sand dunes mark the western boundary and several houses have been abandoned to the sand. The town is split in two by a wadi. On one side, there is the old sector, and on the other the new one. The indigenous Saharan architecture of older sectors of the city features houses constructed of reddish dry-stone and mud-brick techniques, with flat roofs timbered from palms. Many of the older houses feature hand-hewn doors cut from massive ancient acacia trees, which have long disappeared from the surrounding area. Many homes include courtyards or patios that crow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesosiderite
Mesosiderites are a class of stony–iron meteorites consisting of about equal parts of metallic nickel-iron and silicate. They are breccias with an irregular texture; silicates and metal occur often in lumps or pebbles as well as in fine-grained intergrowths. The silicate part contains olivine, pyroxenes, and Ca-rich feldspar and is similar in composition to eucrites and diogenites. They are a rare type of meteorite; as of November 2014 only 208 are known (of which 56 come from Antarctica) and only 7 of these are observed falls. On the other hand, some mesosiderites are among the largest meteorites known. At Vaca Muerta in the Atacama Desert in Chile, many fragments with a total mass of 3.8 tons were found in a large strewnfield. They were first discovered in the 19th century by ore prospectors who mistook the shiny metal inclusions for silver and thought they had found an outcrop of a silver ore deposit. Later when an analysis was made and nickel-iron was found, the true nature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sahara
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Gaston Ripert
Gaston is a masculine given name of French origin and a surname. The name "Gaston" may refer to: People First name *Gaston I, Count of Foix (1287–1315) *Gaston II, Count of Foix (1308–1343) *Gaston III, Count of Foix (1331–1391) *Gaston IV, Count of Foix (1422–1472) *Gaston I, Viscount of Béarn (died circa 980) *Gaston II, Viscount of Béarn (circa 951 – 1012) *Gaston III, Viscount of Béarn (died on or before 1045) *Gaston IV, Viscount of Béarn (died 1131) *Gaston V, Viscount of Béarn (died 1170) *Gaston VI, Viscount of Béarn (1173–1214) *Gaston VII, Viscount of Béarn (1225–1290) *Gaston of Foix, Prince of Viana (1444–1470) * Gaston, Count of Marsan (1721–1743) *Gaston, Duke of Orléans (1608–1660), French nobleman *Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962), French philosopher *Gaston Balande (1880–1971), French painter and illustrator *Gaston Browne (born 1967), Antiguan politician and Prime Minister *Gaston Caperton (born 1940), American politician *Gaston Chev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in front of oxygen (32.1% and 30.1%, respectively), forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust. In its metallic state, iron is rare in the Earth's crust, limited mainly to deposition by meteorites. Iron ores, by contrast, are among the most abundant in the Earth's crust, although extracting usable metal from them requires kilns or furnaces capable of reaching or higher, about higher than that required to smelt copper. Humans started to master that process in Eurasia during the 2nd millennium BCE and the use of iron tools and weapons began to displace copper alloys, in some regions, only around 1200 BCE. That event is considered the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, gastronomy, and science. For its leading role in the arts and sciences, as well as its very early system of street lighting, in the 19th century it became known as "the City of Light". Like London, prior to the Second World War, it was also sometimes called the capital of the world. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region, or Paris Region, with an estimated population of 12,262,544 in 2019, or about 19% of the population of France, making the region France's primate city. The Paris Region had a GDP of €739 billion ($743 billion) in 2019, which is the highest in Europe. According to the Economist Intelli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Lacroix
Antoine François Alfred Lacroix (4 February 186312 March 1948) was a French mineralogist and geologist. He was born in Mâcon, Saône-et-Loire. Education Lacroix completed a D. s Sc. in Paris in 1889, as student of Ferdinand André Fouqué. Fouqué only agreed to the graduation if Lacroix would marry his daughter. Career In 1893, he was appointed professor of mineralogy at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, and in 1896 director of the mineralogical laboratory in the École des Hautes Études. He paid especial attention to minerals connected with volcanic phenomena and igneous rocks, to the effects of metamorphism, and to mineral veins, in various parts of the world, notably in the Pyrenees. In his numerous contributions to scientific journals he dealt with the mineralogy and petrology of Madagascar, and published an elaborate and exhaustive volume on the eruptions in Martinique, ''La Montagne Pelée et ses éruptions'' (Paris 1904). He also issued an important work entitled '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Théodore Monod
Théodore André Monod (9 April 1902 – 22 November 2000) was a French naturalist, humanist, scholar and explorer. Exploration Early in his career, Monod was made professor at the ''Muséum national d'histoire naturelle'' and founded the '' Institut fondamental d’Afrique noire'' in Senegal. He became a member of the '' Académie des sciences d'outre-mer'' in 1949, member of the ''Académie de marine'' in 1957 and member of the ''Académie des sciences'' in 1963. In 1960, he became one of the founders of the ''World Academy of Art and Science''. He began his career in Africa with the study of monk seals on Mauritania's Cap Blanc peninsula. However, he soon turned his attention to the Sahara desert, which he would survey for more than sixty years in search of meteorites. Though he failed to find the meteorite he sought, he discovered numerous plant species as well as several important Neolithic sites. Perhaps his most important find (together with Wladimir Besnard) was the Assel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques Gallouédec
Ancient and noble French family names, Jacques, Jacq, or James are believed to originate from the Middle Ages in the historic northwest Brittany region in France, and have since spread around the world over the centuries. To date, there are over one hundred identified noble families related to the surname by the Nobility & Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland. Origins The origin of this surname ultimately originates from the Latin, Jacobus which belongs to an unknown progenitor. Jacobus comes from the Hebrew name, Yaakov, which translates as "one who follows" or "to follow after". Ancient history A French knight returning from the Crusades in the Holy Lands probably adopted the surname from "Saint Jacques" (or "James the Greater"). James the Greater was one of Jesus' Twelve Apostles, and is believed to be the first martyred apostle. Being endowed with this surname was an honor at the time and it is likely that the Church allowed it because of acts during the Crusades. Indeed, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hematite
Hematite (), also spelled as haematite, is a common iron oxide compound with the formula, Fe2O3 and is widely found in rocks and soils. Hematite crystals belong to the rhombohedral lattice system which is designated the alpha polymorph of . It has the same crystal structure as corundum () and ilmenite (). With this it forms a complete solid solution at temperatures above . Hematite naturally occurs in black to steel or silver-gray, brown to reddish-brown, or red colors. It is mined as an important ore mineral of iron. It is electrically conductive. Hematite varieties include ''kidney ore'', ''martite'' (pseudomorphs after magnetite), ''iron rose'' and ''specularite'' (specular hematite). While these forms vary, they all have a rust-red streak. Hematite is not only harder than pure iron, but also much more brittle. Maghemite is a polymorph of hematite (γ-) with the same chemical formula, but with a spinel structure like magnetite. Large deposits of hematite are found in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
