Citation: Taylor, G. J. (January, 2013) New Martian Meteorite is Similar to Typical Martian Crust. Planetary Science Research Discoveries. http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Jan13/NWA7034.html (date accessed).PSRD-NWA7034.pdf
Carl Agee, Institute of Meteoritics at the University of New Mexico (UNM), led a team with wide scientific expertise from UNM, the University of California at San Diego, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington in examining what turned out to be a unique Martian meteorite, Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034. The ratio of iron to manganese clearly links it to Mars. Yet, its overall chemical composition makes it unique among Martian meteorites: high concentrations of rare earth elements (five times more than the typical Martian meteorite) and H2O (ten times higher than any other Martian meteorite) and old age of 2.09 billion years (compared to less than 500 million years for the largest group of Martian meteorites, and 1.3 billion years for another group; one sample has an older age of 4.1 billion years). The chemical composition of NWA 7034 is more like that of the Martian crust observed from orbit by the Mars Odyssey Gamma-Ray Spectrometer and on the ground by the Pathfinder and Mars Exploration Rovers. The sample appears to be a volcanic rock with a basaltic composition like most of the crust and formed in the early part of the Amazonian era of Martian geologic history. Small differences in the oxygen isotoptic composition of NWA 7034 compared to other Martian meteorites indicate that rocks on Mars vary somewhat in the proportions of oxygen isotopes.
This unique rock shows the importance of continued searches for meteorites in the hot and cold deserts of Earth to recover additional samples of Mars. The fact that NWA 7034 is the 112th Martian meteorite identified on Earth, also proves the value of persistent searching. More importantly, it also shows us the importance of being able to analyze rocks in terrestrial laboratories with the battery of continuously-improving instruments available to us.
Some meteorites are observed to fall, but most are found. They fall all over, most splashing into the ocean where recovery is unlikely. Many are found by observant people who plow up an unusual rock on their farm or hear a clang when digging in their gardens. In wet climates, fallen meteorites rot practically as soon as they fall, in some cases lasting in the dirt for only a few decades. The best place to preserve them is in dry places, either wet or dry deserts (see PSRD article: Meteorites on Ice.) These environments do not necessarily perfectly preserve these valuable rocks from the sky, but they do a much better job than do temperate and tropical climates.
There are two incredibly important search areas for desert meteorites. One is Antarctica, where national agencies manage organized searches each Antarctic summer using teams of meteorite hunters in cold-weather garb to look for promising rocks atop the ice sheet. The other area is in northwest Africa, with more free-wheeling, privately-funded search efforts. That is where NWA 7034 [ Data link from the Meteoritical Bulletin ] came from. It traveled from the desert of Morocco to the desert of New Mexico via the plains of Indiana. The meteorite's terrestrial trip began when it was found in 2011 by Aziz Habibi, a Moroccan meteorite dealer. Mr. Habibi sold it in 2011 to American meteorite collector Jay Piatek, a medical doctor who runs the Piatek Institute in Indianapolis, Indiana. Dr. Piatek has a large meteorite collection and like many collectors shares his samples with meteorite researchers. He has worked with the group at the UNM Institute of Meteoritics before. Although the rock's shiny, black fusion crust clearly showed it was a meteorite, Dr. Piatek was puzzled about what kind of meteorite it was. So was Carl Agee when he received the sample from Dr. Piatek and pondered it for a month before sawing off a slice to reveal a dark-grey almost black breccia, unlike any achondrite he had seen. Once Agee and his colleagues did a bulk analysis of a small piece of NWA 7