METEORITE COLLECTION AT THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM OF BURGAS

The "Meteorites" collection at the Burgas Natural History Museum was created thanks to donations from two meteorite hunters and collectors – Andrey Barakshin from Russia and Georgi Penev from Bulgaria. Some of the cosmic specimens provided are their own findings.
The collection contains samples from Sweden, Czech Republic, Russia, China, Brazil, Cuba, Chile, Mauritania, Namibia, Morocco, and Kenya. The main types of meteorites are represented – stony (chondrites and achondrites), stony-iron (pallasites), and iron. Three meteorites have a proven source from the asteroid Vesta.


Ignat Barakshin in Irkutsk


Georgi Penev is a major donor to other museums in Bulgaria

STONY METEORITES
CHONDRITES


VIÑALES, Location: Pinar del Rio, Cuba
History: On February 1, 2019, a bright bolide flew over the province of Pinar del Rio, Cuba, accompanied by loud bangs, leaving a long smoke trail. Local residents thought a plane had crashed as they heard explosions followed by a rumble that lasted 15-20 seconds. A meteorite shower fell over the Viñales Valley, a national monument since 1978 and a UNESCO World Heritage site. In total, about 50-100 kg were collected from the meteorite.

CHELYABINSK, Location: Chelyabinsk, Russia
History: At 9:22 AM (local time) on February 15, 2013, a bright fireball was seen over the regions of Kurgan, Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, and Chelyabinsk. Residents of the Chelyabinsk area heard a loud explosion. The shock wave broke windows in Chelyabinsk and surrounding cities. Many people were injured by broken glass. Thousands of stones rained down from the sky. They were taken from the snow and collected by local people immediately after the explosion. Their total mass exceeds 500 kg.

METEORITE (NWA 869) is one of the largest meteorites from the Sahara known to date. It consists of thousands of fragments, whose weight varies from less than 1 g to more than 20 kg. It became clear that meteorite collectors in Northwest Africa had discovered a large chondrite field – at least 2 metric tons of material have been sold under the name NWA 869 in the Moroccan market and worldwide. Collected in 2001 and donated by Georgi Penev

NWA 869

NWA 12410

NWA 13736

ACHONDRITES


These meteorites are achondrites and have a proven source from the asteroid Vesta. They were found by local meteorite hunters in NW Africa.

NWA 13787 NWA 12407

STONY-IRON METEORITES
PALLASITES


SEYMCHAN. Location: Magadan Oblast, Russia. Polished plate of a pallasite meteorite piece with subsequent chemical treatment to reveal Widmanstätten patterns. The Seymchan meteorite is identified as being from the pallasites group (named after their first investigator, Peter Simon Pallas, a professor at St. Petersburg University). It was discovered in 1967 and weighs 312.3 kg. In 2004, another piece weighing 50 kg was found.

Circumstances of the fall or discovery: The larger specimen was found by geologist F. A. Mednikov during a geological survey. The meteorite was barely visible among the stones of the Ebd stream. The smaller specimen was discovered with a metal detector by I. H. Markov in October 1967, at a distance of 20 m from the first. The main mass was handed over to the USSR Academy of Sciences.


<b> IMILAC. Location: Atacama Desert, Chile. Found in 1822 and weighs: 920 kg.
The Imilac pallasite had been known to local residents of the region for hundreds of years. It was first brought to the attention of European researchers in the early 19th century as pieces of native silver, as well as native iron from the desert between Atacama and Copiapó. By the end of the 20th century, several more large pieces were found after professional meteorite hunters discovered shallow impact craters surrounded by large quantities of meteorite fragments. In the last few years (~2010+), professional teams have collected at least another 200 kilograms.

SERICHO. Location: Isiolo, Kenya
History: It was discovered in 2016 by two Masai brothers. While searching for their camels, they came across several large stones. Since there are no rocks in the vicinity, they decided to take a piece of the strange stones to the village. The elder remembered seeing them as a child but doesn't know when this large meteorite fell.
In early January 2017, Michael Farmer received an email with a picture of a "giant pallasite" weighing 107 kg and went to Nairobi to buy it. Two weeks later, he returned to Kenya, where he was shown more than a ton of specimens arranged in the yards of two houses.
To date, over 2,800 kg of the meteorite have been discovered, ranging from less than 1 to 500 kg. They were found in a scattered field over 45 km long, starting a few kilometers west of Habaswein and south of Sericho in Isiolo County. Smaller pieces were found near Habaswein.
Villagers continue to collect pieces, mainly from the surface. Most of them weigh over 50 kg. Meteorites found on the surface show minimal weathering, with spots of fusion crust on the metal.
What's interesting about them is that they formed at the crust/mantle boundary of a young planet or large differentiated asteroid. A giant collision with another large asteroid destroyed the young planet, and these meteorites are direct evidence of this terrifying phenomenon. They are as beautiful as they are interesting with their formation history. Pallasites are composed mainly of olivine crystals in an iron-nickel matrix.


IRON METEORITES


AGOUDAL. Location: Agoudal, Morocco. The piece of meteorite and shock-altered rock from the site of the fall are a personal collection and donation from Georgi Penev.
History: In 2000, in the area of Agoudal, High Atlas Mountains, Morocco, two small pieces of iron were collected and sold to tourists. In September 2011, a meteorite dealer proved that it was an iron meteorite. In the last months of 2012, systematic searches with metal detectors by meteorite hunters led to the discovery of a large number of small meteorites.
Many pieces were collected on the surface or buried a few centimeters deep. The largest of them weighs 60 kg and was found buried 50 cm below the surface.

ALETAI. Location: Xinjiang, China. Polished piece of iron meteorite, chemically treated to reveal Widmanstätten patterns.
History: In 1898, a local farmer found a large piece in a valley in a mountainous area of Aletai County in China that was half-buried. A small specimen was taken for analysis. During the first year of exploration in the area, more than 50 tons of meteorite fragments were extracted, after which there were no new discoveries for more than a hundred years.
In 2021, a huge piece weighing 23 tons was found in the Xinjiang region, which revived interest in the meteorite. By the way, the name "Aletai" does not accidentally resemble "Altai" – the meteorite's impact zone belongs to the Chinese part of the Altai mountain system. Like all iron meteorites, this one is a fragment of the core of an ancient protoplanet or large asteroid that broke apart about 4.5 billion years ago when the Solar System was forming.

GIBEON. Location: Gibeon village, Hardap in Namibia. Polished piece of iron meteorite, chemically treated to reveal Widmanstätten patterns.
History: The meteorites were discovered in 1838 by J. E. Alexander during his travels in Africa. He sent a sample to London, where the prominent astronomer Sir John Herschel determined the large amount of nickel and declared it an iron meteorite.
Fragments of the Gibeon meteorite are scattered over an area 390 kilometers long and 120 kilometers wide, which is the largest known meteorite scattering field in the world. More than 150 meteorites have been found in the area, but many of the valuable specimens have been stolen and illegally exported from the country or donated to various research institutions. Nevertheless, 30 of these extraterrestrial wonders weighing between 195 and 506 kilograms are accessible to everyone. The collection was declared a national monument on February 15, 1950, and is displayed in the fountain in the central business district of Windhoek. All meteorites discovered in Namibia are protected as national monuments. It is forbidden to move them from the place of discovery, as well as to destroy them in any way.
There are artifacts proving the use of cosmic iron during the Iron Age for making iron tools and weapons.


MUONIONALUSTA. Location: Norrbottens, Sweden. Polished piece of iron meteorite, chemically treated to reveal Widmanstätten patterns.
History: The first fragments of this meteorite were discovered in 1906 near the Swedish-Finnish border. In 1909, Professor of Mineralogy Gustav Högbom analyzed samples of it. On the banks of the Muonio River alone, fragments with a total weight of over 20 tons have been discovered.

The Muonionalusta meteorite is one of the oldest known to modern science. Its age is more than 4 billion years, and the time of its fall to Earth was between 15 and 800 thousand years ago. Numerous pieces of it are scattered over about 400 square kilometers.


SIKHOTE-ALIN. Location: Ussuri taiga, Primorsky Krai, Russia
History: The meteorite fell at 10:38 on February 12, 1947, in the western part of the Sikhote-Alin mountain system, in the Ussuri taiga in Russia. The phenomenon was accompanied by a bright, fiery bolide, observed in the Khabarovsk and Primorsky regions, within a radius of up to 400 km. Upon impact with the Earth's surface, a loud rumble was heard, and in places, the earth was felt to shake.
During its movement in the Earth's atmosphere, it broke into thousands of pieces and fell in the form of an iron meteorite rain. This is the most abundant meteorite shower, far exceeding all known meteorite streams both in the number of individual parts and in their total mass. The total mass of the collected meteorite material from whole meteorites and their fragments is about 27 tons.
Scientists are still debating the origin of the Sikhote-Alin meteorite. Some consider it part of an asteroid that was destroyed millions of years ago. Others claim it is a completely independent celestial body formed 4.5 billion years ago.

URUAÇU. Location: Goiás, Brazil
Found by a rancher in 1992. Over the years, gold miners have found dozens of specimens with a total weight of over 500 kg.




TEKTITES


Libyan Desert Glass. Location: Eastern Sahara
It was officially discovered in 1932 by P. Clayton but has a long history dating back to Ancient Egypt. Libyan desert glass is also known as Libyan golden tektite or large sand sea glass. It is believed to have been created by a meteorite impact 26 million years ago over the modern Sahara Desert in present-day western Egypt and eastern Libya. The pieces are found scattered over many square kilometers and vary in color from transparent yellow to full gold.
Artifacts of this natural glass have been found among the ruins of Ancient Egypt. Besides everyday tools and weapons that were made from this unique mineral, it was also revered by the pharaohs. In the burial chamber of Tutankhamun in 1922, a special pendant was found placed around the pharaoh's body. In the center of the talisman is carved a scarab, a symbol of Ancient Egypt.


Moldavite (tektite). České Budějovice, Czech Republic. Tektites (from Greek tektos, molten) themselves are not meteorites, but natural glass objects up to several centimeters in size, resulting from the impacts of an asteroid or comet with Earth's surface.
The collision with Earth is the cause for the formation of this fascinating material – a rare greenish tektite. It was created as a result of an impact, which ejected molten material into the atmosphere, which after cooling fell back to Earth over a wide area in present-day Czech Republic. The glassy droplets that fell on the Earth's surface are called moldavite, which due to its aesthetic and precious qualities is used in jewelry.
COMPLETE INVENTORY
The document concludes with a detailed inventory table listing all 23 specimens in the collection, including their names, locations, discovery years, types, and sources (with GP indicating specimens from Georgi Penev and AB indicating those from Andrey Barakshin).