Gibeon is a

meteorite A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or moon. When the original object en ...

that fell in

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

times in

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and e ...

. It was named after the nearest town: Gibeon.

History

The meteorite was discovered by the

Nama people Nama (in older sources also called Namaqua) are an African ethnic group of South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. They traditionally speak the Nama language of the Khoe-Kwadi language family, although many Nama also speak Afrikaans. The Nama P ...

and used by them to make tools and weapons. In 1836 the English captain J. E. Alexander collected samples of the meteorite in the vicinity of the Fish River and sent them to London. There

John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanic ...

analyzed them and confirmed for the first time the extraterrestrial nature of the material. Between 1911 and 1913, 33 fragments of the meteorite were collected in the vicinity of Gibeon and brought to the capital

Windhoek Windhoek (, , ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek in 20 ...

. They weighed between and were first stored, then displayed at Zoo Park as a single heap. In 1975 a public fountain displaying the meteorite fragments was planned. The pieces were removed and stored at Alte Feste, where two of the fragments were stolen. The fountain was erected in Post Street Mall, with two empty pillars for the missing fragments. Since then, two more fragments were removed from the fountain, so that it displays only 29 today. The collection displayed on the fountain in Windhoek's Central Business District was proclaimed a National Monument ( geology) on 15 February 1950. Additionally, all meteorites found in Namibia are automatically protected as National Monuments and must not be removed from where they have been found, nor damaged in any way.

Strewn field

The fragments of the meteorite in the strewn field are dispersed over an elliptical area long and wide. The core of this area is situated near the village of Gibeon in Namibia's

Hardap Region Hardap is one of the fourteen regions of Namibia, its capital is Mariental. Hardap contains the municipality of Mariental, the towns Rehoboth and Aranos, and the self-governed villages Gibeon, Gochas, Kalkrand, Stampriet and Maltahöhe. It ...

. About 100–150 different fragments have been collected over time, and additional pieces are found occasionally.

Composition and classification

The term Gibeon encompasses the whole meteoritic material fallen from the sky during this fall. This material is classified as

iron meteorite Iron meteorites, also known as siderites, or ferrous meteorites, are a type of meteorite that consist overwhelmingly of an iron–nickel alloy known as meteoric iron that usually consists of two mineral phases: kamacite and taenite. Most i ...

belonging to the chemical group IVA. Gibeon meteorites are composed of an

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 ...

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

alloy containing significant amounts of

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, ...

and

phosphorus Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Ea ...

. The crystal structure of this meteorite provides a classic example of fine

octahedrite Octahedrites are the most common structural class of iron meteorites. The structures occur because the meteoric iron has a certain nickel concentration that leads to the exsolution of kamacite out of taenite while cooling. Structure Octahedr ...

and the

Widmanstätten pattern Widmanstätten patterns, also known as Thomson structures, are figures of long nickel–iron crystals, found in the octahedrite iron meteorites and some pallasites. They consist of a fine interleaving of kamacite and taenite bands or ribbon ...

is appreciated for its beauty both by collectors and designers of jewelry.

References

External links

Gibeon Iron Meteorites: Their Discovery, History and Research
{{Meteorites by name Meteorites found in Namibia National Monuments of Namibia

History

Strewn field

Composition and classification

See also

References

External links