Cairo: When a fireball from space crashed into the rocky plains of southeast Morocco in September, Mohamed Benitjit topped up the credit on his mobile phone and packed a bag with a tiny magnet and a few clothes, ready to set off in search of meteorite fragments.
“I just need to know where it landed,” the 52-year-old merchant said in Enzala, a village at the foothills of the Atlas mountains. “Information is everything in our trade. It doesn’t come easy since whoever finds something likes to keep it for himself.”
Like many other locals, Benitjit is seeking to cash in on the kingdom’s status as a booming hub for meteorite hunting.
Morocco has reported more falls than anywhere else in the last 20 years, and about half of all scientific publications involving meteorites are based on finds made in the country, according to Hasnaa Chennaoui Aoudjehane, a professor of meteoritics and planetary science at the Hassan II University of Casablanca.
Since the global market is fragmented and unregulated, sales are difficult to track, but prices range from hundreds of dollars for pieces traded on internet sites like eBay to millions for larger chunks sold through auction houses, like Sotheby’s and Christies.
The North African country of around 38 million people has made it easier for meteor hunters to export finds alongside a drive to boost tourism and create new revenue sources in remote regions — where traditional pastoral activities are suffering from climate change.
What was once “a hobby and a key part of the local heritage” for thousands of people has become “an extractive activity in its own right,” said Samira Mizbar, an independent socio-economist who specializes in development policies.
Meteorites tend to explode into pieces as they crash through the Earth’s outer atmosphere; they can also shatter on impact. While thousands fall every year, only a tiny fraction of fragments are found, with the vast majority landing in oceans or isolated areas.
Valuation depends on various factors, including where in the solar system a piece originated and when it fell, as prolonged exposure to the Earth’s elements can cause contamination, or damage.
Most finds in the kingdom involve pieces that fell years, if not centuries ago.
They come from asteroids, the moon, or even Mars, and contain metals like cobalt, iron, and nickel — which make them magnetic. They include so-called carbonaceous chondrites — which are rich in water, sulfur, and carbon-based organic compounds — as well as new types “that have expanded our knowledge of the materials in the asteroid belt,” said Guy Consolmagno, an American research astronomer and physicist, who heads the Vatican Observatory, as well as The Meteoritical Society.
Morocco’s desert climate protects fragments, while its landscape makes them fairly easy to spot.
For decades, these arid expanses have been a hotspot for a secretive and small network of experienced meteorite hunters, with the first recorded discovery in 1932, according to Chennaoui.
Activity picked up in 2011, after several people saw a fireball crashing into the Oued Drâa valley. Within weeks, nomads retrieved pieces that were sold to dealers. The Natural History Museum in London acquired a 1.1kg (2.4 pounds) chunk for £330,000, with help from an anonymous donor, according to its 2011-12 Annual Report. Chennaoui’s own museum, The Attarik Foundation, holds a 7 gram fragment worth $7,000.
The high sale prices of the so-called Tissint Martian pieces reflected their freshness, rarity and origin — Mars — which was confirmed, in part, by their fusion crust and impact glass veins. Less than 0.3% of fragments in collections were knocked off the surface of the red planet, and very few have been recovered from a meteorite that was actually seen falling.
In 2020, Morocco began experiencing what Chennaoui calls “a gold rush.” That’s when the government made it legal for licensed meteorite hunters to export or sell up to 90% of their finds, depending on weight, after they register the discovery with the nation’s Geology Directorate, which keeps the rest for its scientific record.
Licenses are free, but they are only available to residents, regardless of their nationality. Some licensed hunters organize expeditions for tourists.
Even so, Morocco now has by far the least restrictive laws among meteorite-rich countries for the trade and export of space rocks. Nearby, Mauritania does not have dedicated legislation. Algeria, Libya, Egypt and Tunisia all ban exports.
Niger, which has no laws, opened a formal investigation after a fragment — billed as the biggest piece of Mars on Earth — was sold to an anonymous bidder for $5.3 million, including taxes and fees, at a Sotheby’s auction in New York in July. Authorities questioned the export and compared it to illicit trafficking.
Morocco’s Geology Directorate — which is affiliated with the energy transition and sustainable development ministry — declined to answer questions, including about how many people have signed up for licenses, or how many fragments have been registered. Numbers wouldn’t reveal a complete picture, though.
“The legal or official circuit only captures a tiny portion of the trade,” according to Chennaoui.
The legislation builds on efforts by scientists and heritage advocates who had been expressing concern from the 1990s onwards about the vast quantities of meteorites leaving the country with no documentation. And overall, it strikes the right balance between stakeholders, Chennaoui said.
She added that she hopes the government will adopt a certification system soon, as that would curb underground activity by “maximizing profit.”
The value of meteorites has increased dramatically over the past few decades, according to Philipp Heck, senior director at the Chicago-based Field Museum. Just one gram of a Lunar meteorite now fetches more than $100, while the same amount of Martian meteorite can reach above $1,000.
Buyers in Morocco include hundreds of fossil and meteorite shops as well as collectors and philanthropists — such as Faouzi Chaabi, owner of Ynna Holding, one of the country’s biggest family-owned conglomerates, who said he’s passionate about protecting Morocco’s natural heritage.
“Until a few decades ago, shiploads of meteorites and fossils left Morocco for North America and Spain unchecked and unregulated,” Chaabi said. “That pained me.”
The September fireball event sparked a massive search led by experienced hunters using GPS devices and powerful magnets.
Around 100 people, some in four-wheel vehicles, were seen combing the desert within a 30-mile radius of the Jbel Ayachi mount, according to Rachid Adnane, who chairs the elected council in Midelt and was among a group of legislators that pushed for the new law.
“This is an exceptional activity,” said Adnane. “It’s bringing in tourists and foreign currency, everyone is benefiting.”
Also on the lookout are locals, including shepherds as well as traders and middle men.
The people of Morocco’s southeastern regions are generally poor so they are economically driven to search for fragments and ensure a steady supply, according to Said Jagouj, a 70-year old who tends a shop that sells meteorites and fossils in the nearby city of Midelt.
“We are quite destitute,” he said. “There’s little else to do apart from apple farming and meteorites.”
Urban legends abound in the Midelt, Erfoud and Errachidia regions of meteorite hunters who became wealthy and built their own hotels or invested in date farming. But Benitjit has yet to hit the jackpot. In the 15 years he’s been in the trade, his most valuable find was in 2018, and earned him about 1,500 dirhams ($162).
Standing next to a tiny table, covered in trinkets and meteorite fragments, at the entrance to a weekly market in Enzala, Benitjit said he still didn’t know where to go look for the fireball that crashed to Earth in September, but hopes he’ll get a tip-off from the shepherds he has become acquainted with.
“This is beautiful,” he said, pulling out from his waist pouch a carefully-wrapped, 250-gram rock he reckoned was worth $1,200. “It came from the moon.”
(Reporting by Souhail Karam)
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