Impact Craters and Meteorites: The Egyptian Record

Abstract

This chapter provides an account of the present Egyptian impact cratering record as well as an overview of the Egyptian meteorite collection. The 45-m-diameter Kamil crater in the East Uweinat District in southwestern Egypt is so far the only confirmed impact crater in Egypt. Due to its exceptional state of preservation Kamil can be considered a type-structure for small-scale impacts on Earth. Enigmatic types of natural glasses including the Libyan Desert glass found in the Great Sand Sea and the Dakhleh glass found near Dakhla Oasis (note that Dakhla, Dakhleh and Dakhlah are transliterations) may be products of low-altitude airbursts of large and fragile cometary or asteroidal impactors. A number of circular, crater-shaped geological structures superficially resembling impact craters are discussed. To date the Egyptian meteorite collection totals 2 falls, including the ~10 kg Martian meteorite Nakhla that has served as a keystone for the understanding of magmatic differentiation processes on Mars, and 76 finds. With the exception of a minority of incidental findings, most Egyptian meteorite finds (~75%) were recovered over the last ~30 years from three dense meteorite collection areas, namely the El-Shaik Fedl, Great Sand Sea and Marsa Alam fields. The exceptional exposures of the Precambrian basement and Paleozoic to Cenozoic sedimentary covers in Egypt offer a good opportunity for the identification of new impact structures. Likewise, Egypt’s vast rocky desert surfaces are of great potential for the collection of meteorites through systematic searches. These prospects are fundamental ingredients for fostering the ongoing development of meteoritics and planetary science in Egypt as disciplines for future scientific endeavor in Africa.