Agoudal is an iron meteorite first found in Morocco in 2000. Hundreds of shrapnel-like pieces were recovered, along with a far smaller number of specimens more evocative of quintessential iron meteorites. Because the smaller pieces typically possess a fusion crust, it is clear that the iron meteorite exploded relatively high in the atmosphere; this facilitated melting of the surfaces of the individual fragments due to atmospheric friction. Agoudal is from chemical group IIAB; it formed by crystallization of iron-nickel minerals in the core of a melted and differentiated body. The meteorite is extensively shocked, illustrative of energetic collisions from other meteorites on its parent asteroid in the epoch before the IIAB asteroid itself was shattered by a major impact event.

Dr. Dima Sadilenko of Moscow’s Vernadsky Institute discovered shatter cones in a region of the Atlas Mountains from which he recovered Agoudal iron-meteorite specimens. Shatter-cone structures only form as a result of meteorite impacts or nuclear explosions. It is possible that the Agoudal iron meteorite is in fact the projectile responsible for the impact site, but this has not been definitively established.


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