Northwest Africa 1669 (NWA 1669)
Photo © Bruno Fectay & Carine Bidaut JPEG (193K)	Photo © Bruno Fectay & Carine Bidaut JPEG (144K)
Photo © Bruno Fectay & Carine Bidaut JPEG (257K)

Meteorite: Northwest Africa 1669 (NWA 1669)
Location: Morocco
Found: January 2001
Type: Shergottite (SNC)

Meteorite (35.85 grams) bought in Morocco in January 2001 by Bruno Fectay and Carine Bidaut,

                    THE METEORITICAL BULLETIN
              E-mail Announcement 87-4, May 6, 2003
              
            Sara Russell, Editor (sara.russell@nhm.ac.uk)
            Jutta Zipfel, Assoc. Ed. for Northwest Africa 
                     (zipfel@mpch-mainz.mpg.de)
          Luigi Folco, Assoc. Ed. for Africa (folco@unisi.it)
         Monica Grady, Assoc. Ed. for Oman (M.Grady@nhm.ac.uk)
       Rhian Jones, Assoc. Ed. for the Americas (rjones@unm.edu)
      Tim McCoy, Assoc. Ed. for Antarctica (mccoy.tim@nmnh.si.edu)
      Jeffrey N. Grossman, Assoc. Ed. for Web (jgrossman@usgs.gov)

This is the fourth electronic announcement of new meteorites to be 
published in Meteoritical Bulletin, No. 87, 2003 July.  

Northwest Africa 1669
  Morocco
  Purchased January 2001
  Martian meteorite (basaltic shergottite)
A single stone weighing 36 g was bought in Erfoud in January 2001 by 
Bruno Fectay (Fectay). The location of its find is unknown but Al 
Mala'ika was used as working name. The sample is mostly covered with 
desert varnish with a few remnants of fusion crust. Classification 
and mineralogy (Albert Jambon and Omar Boudouma, UPVI; Jean-Alix 
Barrat, UAng; Marcel Bohn, Brest): fine-grained basaltic rock 
consisting mainly of zoned pyroxenes with intergrowths of pigeonite 
En58-25Wo9-19Fs32-61 and augite En19-47Wo39-24Fs54-18; FeO/MnO ratio 
of 34 (n=312). Maskelynite (Ab41-53Or1-6An58-42) appears to be 
injected between pyroxene phenocrysts. Accessory minerals include 
pyrrhotite, merrilite, apatite, ulvöspinel, ilmenite, silica and 
baddeleyite. Small melt pockets with stishovite occuring as 
submicrometric needles. Pyroxene cores are cut by large and medium 
sized fractures whereas their rims are affected by numerous small 
fractures. Maskelynite is only affected by a few major fractures. 
Terrestrial calcite is present mainly as veins cross-cutting the 
meteorite, as in many other Saharan finds. Oxygen isotope composition 
(I. A. Franchi, OU): d18O = +0.30 permil; d17O = +2.85 permil; D17O= 
4.91 permil. Specimen; main mass, Fectay; type specimen, 7.4 g, ENSL.