African Meteorite Finds: Weathering Processes and Influencing Factors

The African continent includes the second largest meteorite population finds worldwide after the Antarctica collection. This work aimed to study the variation of the alteration rates of the African collection and define some factors influencing the weathering mechanisms. The distribution of weathering grades (W) of the African collection shows a weathering less pronounced than that of the Australian collection, but a deeper alteration than that of Antarctic finds with the peak at the weathering grade W2, which is placed between the peak of Antarctic population (at W1) and that of Australian collection (at W3). The factors that influence the alteration of African finds include climate, which is the main factor, mass, terrestrial residence age and the initial porosity of samples.