Northwest Africa 10688 | L4

Ordinary chondrite, L4
Found in Morocco, 2016

Northwest Africa 10688 was purchased in Temara, Morocco in 2016; its exact find location is unknown. It was classified as an L4 ordinary chondrite, meaning that it displays a large percentage of chondrules and contains low iron. Though the parent bodies of ordinary chondrites remain a mystery, studying the composition of meteorites helps researchers piece together what they might have looked like. Some research indicates that L chondrite meteorite may have had their origin in the Ordovician meteor event, which occurred about 467.5 million years ago. Scientists theorize that during this event, fragments from the L chondrite parent body, believed to have been destroyed about 468 million years ago, that had made it into Earth-crossing orbits rained down on Earth. Some sources theorize that this event may have contributed to, or even instigated, the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, one of the greatest evolutionary events in the history of life on Earth; it spanned the entire globe and saw vast increases in the variety of types of creatures that inhabited this planet.