How Morocco became the world’s met stone hunting capital

In the world The most famous Met stone show is Ensisheim, France, and found that there are many dealers from Morocco. Unlike most Europeans and Americans who had exhibit cases, labels and books, Moroccan food stalls were minimal. A white sheet covered in a chunk of reddish brown rock. A pair of scales. Sometimes paper is written in Bilo and priced per kilo. All I learned about the Saharan Gold Rush was back in England.

Since 1999, the number of met stones found in Morocco has exploded. The number is officially recognized, over a thousand, which has been described by scientists as “the total is underestimated.” For comparison, there have been only 23 falls and have been found in the UK.

“You have to talk to Hasna,” dealer Daryl Pitt wrote to me. “She tried to make the mess of the met stones in North Africa more orderly, but it was somewhat successful.” It wasn’t the first time her name was featured.

Hasnaa Chennaoui Aoudjehane, a professor at Hassan II University in Casablanca, is used to being an outsider in the room. At the meeting Weather Association Meteorite’s Nomenclature Committee was a group entrusted with officially named and recognized metstones, and when she was a member, she was “a unique representative of the Arab or Muslim country.” (She remains a consultant on the committee.) She moaned as I broached the subject of Moroccan exports. “The situation with the met stones in Morocco is insane,” she says. “That’s unethical.”

Towards the end of the last century, several factors have been combined to make Morocco a hot spot for met stones. First, climate and geography. Allowing a difference in total surface area, metstones could land in Scottish highlands like the Sahara, but in the former it becomes much more difficult to find Heather, rock – and “terrestrial” . Much faster – rain, mud, snow. Most (but not all) metstones reach the Earth with the appearance of a dark fusion crust. In the Sahara, such rocks stand out in the sand.

Secondly, Morocco already had a network of western fossils, minerals and archaeological hunters and dealers, but many Moroccans (particularly members of nomadic groups) were very skilled to explore. I did rock And desert artifacts. As I walked with the herd, I saw the ground,” the nomad explained to the journalist from the Middle Eastern eyes. According to him, the stone business saved many nomadic families from poverty.

Third, the legal and geopolitical situation in Morocco helped things. “We are grateful to God, a peaceful nation,” says Chennawi. “It’s something unique in the area.” Here it is (relatively) safe to wander through the sands of Saharan looking for stones. Furthermore, there was no dedicated regulations for the country’s met stones. If you found a met stone in Morocco, it was probably yours as you like.

American dealer Michael Gilmer will host the start of the Saharan Gold Rush in the mid-1990s. Foreign dealers quickly discovered that they could purchase uncategorized met stones from Moroccan traders at very low prices, formally analyse them in the West, and sell them for a considerable profit.

The town of Elford, located in the Dr. Tafilaret region of southeastern Morocco known as the “gateway to the Sahara”, has become a hub for people who want to make money from the met stone. Visitors will find stores that sell met stones and fossils. Some nomads have diversified to take tourists and collectors into the desert and search for stones.