Mount Kamel Meteorite Protectorate (Arabic: محمية جبل الكامل) was declared a nature reserve in 2012. The site was discovered in 2010 by a joint Egyptian-Italian geological expedition. The team found the giant crater on the Earth, predicting the impact of a massive meteorite in this region thousands of years ago. The scientific team also found the remains of the meteorite and carried a piece of the meteorite weighing 85 kg to exhibit in the Geological Museum.
Location of Mount Kamel Meteorite Protectorate
Mount Kamel Meteorite Protectorate is located east of Oweinat in the northeast of the New Valley and west of the Toshka River, 2 km north of the Sudan border and 116 km from the Libyan border.
History of Mount Kamil Protectorate
In February 2009 and 2010, meteorite fragments with masses ranging from < 1 gram (0.035 oz) to 35 kilograms (77 lb), plus an 83 kilograms (183 lb) specimen, were found in and around a 45 metres (148 ft) radius from Kamil Crater by an Italian-Egyptian geophysical team. About 800 kilograms (1,800 lb) were recovered in the Mount Kamil Meteorite Protectorate. The geophysical survey was part of the “2009 Italian-Egyptian Year of Science and Technology”.
Mineralogy
The Gebel Kamil meteorite Protectorate contains the minerals schreibersite and kamacite.
Characteristics and importance
The discovered meteorite weighs 10 tons and comprises 90% iron and 10% nickel. It moved from the asteroid area between Jupiter and Mars, and its speed before hitting the Earth was 12 thousand kilometres per hour. Eighty-three kilograms, and looking at the hole left by the impact on the ground, we find that it is one of only 15 holes spread on the surface of the Earth. Still, several advantages distinguish it from all of them, including that the environmental condition in which it is now found is perfect, unlike the cases in which its peers are found worldwide. Its mineral components constitute the essential elements of the Earth’s centre and the solar system’s planets. Hence, studying these components is of great importance in studying the structures of the interior of the Earth and the planets.
The meteorite hit the Earth between 2000 and 5000 years from now, and the evidence confirms that the impact was at an angle of inclination and did not take a vertical position. Meteoritic pieces in the region collided with the ground, and the impact resulted in a crater 16 meters deep and 45 meters in diameter.
