MUSCAT, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- Omani Public Authority for Mining said on Sunday that it has launched a campaign to search for meteorites in the Omani territory.
A team of members of the authority, together with the Swiss National Museum of Natural History and the Swiss University of Bern, has conducted a search and collection of Omani meteorites from mid-January last year until mid-February this year, a statement by the Omani Mining Authority.
The statement confirmed that the team has found some meteorites, without revealing the number and size of them, noting that it will be announced after the end of the campaign.
The statement pointed out that the team conducted a similar search of Omani meteorites last year, and found a total of 352 pieces of meteorite at the weight of 53 kg.
Sobhi Nasser, director of the Earth Sciences Research Center at Sultan Qaboos University, said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua that Oman is known for its richness of meteorites.
Nasser stressed that the total number of meteorites discovered in Oman, which were named and adopted by the International Meteorological Organization, has so far reached 5,500, and about 300 meteorites are still in the hands of meteorologists.
He pointed out a large proportion of meteorites found in the country were from the moon or the Mars, 1 gram of which is valued at 2,000-4,000 U.S. dollars.
