Abstract
Africa is a favorable site for meteorite recovery, with a total number of
recoveries amounting to more than 1/6 of all meteorites recovered from the entire
world. This work deals with the classification of meteorite finds in Africa, the
distribution of their masses, and their alteration/weathering grades as affected by
various factors. The African meteorite population includes an abundance of stony
meteorites with a high percentage of the world collection of rare meteorites, i.e.,
Martian meteorites (62%), Ureilites (51%), Rumuruti (59%), Lunar (47%), and HED
(46%). Furthermore, an important increase in achondrite meteorites finds occurred in
the last two decades, compared to the Australian and Antarctic collections. The mass
distribution of the African meteorite population shows that most recoveries (72%) have
masses bigger than 100 g with peaks of about 1 kg, compared to about 0.1 kg for the
Australian collection and 0.01 kg for the Antarctic finds. The distribution of weathering
grades (W) shows the predominance of W1 (32%) and W2 (34%), which proves a
better preservation of meteorites in this continent. The factors influencing the
mechanism and rate of alteration of African finds include climate as the main factor,
the mass, the terrestrial age, and the initial porosity of the sample.
Keywords: Africa, Classification, Human and natural factors, Mass distribution, Meteorite finds, Weathering factors.