Thousands of meteorites fall to the Earth every year, but most are lost, and those few that are found leave little trace on our planet's surface. Agoudal is a defiant exception, its strewn field of meteorite samples directly overlaid with its crater high in Morocco's Atlas Mountains.

Beneath the surface of the meteorite's crater is something even rarer: shatter cones. These unusual rock formations formed from the shockwave of an impact passing through the material. It is unusual for a relatively small meteorite like Agoudal to create these formations, but this little rock packs a powerful punch.

This showcase specimen is a fragment of the Agoudal meteorite, a one-of-a-kind space rock that left a mark on our planet like no other on Earth. It comes complete with a certificate of authenticity. Read on to learn more about Agoudal and its long history of study.

Most meteorites burn up in our atmosphere before they can make landfall, but a lucky few survive intact to leave their mark on the Earth’s surface. All over the world, these impact sites dot the landscape: massive craters that can stretch for tens of miles across. That said, not every impact is some world-ending catastrophe. There are many small-scale craters all over the world, explored by regular people, like the Agoudal Meteorite impact site.

The Agoudal meteorites are a group of iron meteorites first discovered in 2000 in Morocco. Its tough composition makes it something of a rarity as most meteorites that form impact craters are vaporized on the spot. All this rare meteorite material has been a boon to the scientific community, as iron meteorites allow for a greater understanding of the inner cores of planetoids.

Surface craters are not the only impression an impactor leaves on Earth either. Researchers visiting Agoudal have even found shatter cones, very rare rock formations that show physical evidence of a shock wave passing through the stone. These rocks only appear in what’s called impact structures: the underground system of disrupted stone caused by the meteorite impact. 

Whether the Agoudal meteorite can be directly tied to these impact structures remains unsettled. A 2016 paper suggested shatter cones can only form in impact structures that are greater than 2.5 kilometers in diameter, disqualifying the Agoudal meteorite. In this scenario, the overlap of the meteorite strewn field and the impact structure is a coincidence and the shatter cones are far older and eroded.

This view of the Agoudal case is not universally held. A 2017 paper countered that such impact structures have been observed in craters smaller than 2.5 kilometers in diameter, such as Australia’s Wolf Creek Meteorite Crater. In this model, the 500-meter diameter Agoudal meteorite could have formed the structures in question, a testament to the incredible force this small meteorite unleashed.

Agoudal is also the possible source of the nearby Isli and Tislit lakes. These two lakes, which together mean “Husband” and “Wife,” are the site of an annual wedding festival. Legend has it that they were formed from the tears of two star-crossed lovers’ when they were barred from each other by their parents. Today, the festival is a happy occasion, where people from all over the mountain range come to maybe find a partner of their own.