¹Marco A. G. Andreoli (>10)
Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 131, e2026JE009901 Link to Article [DOI: 10.1029/2026JE009901]
¹School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons

In this paper we report the discovery, in the Gilf Kebir Plateau of southwest Egypt, of the first natural occurrence of Diamond-Like-Carbon, of microdiamonds, and new ultra-high T (≥1300°C) silicates, phosphates in boulders and pebbles of a mullite and magnetite melt rock. We also report, in the regolith of the Libyan Desert Glass (LDG) strewn field, comparable mullite-magnetite pebbles and, in paleosols, Diamond-Like-Carbon, N-rich amorphous carbon, aliphatic hydrocarbons, moissanite, and metallic spherules and grains of native Ti. These findings point to a ∼350 km, south to north strewnfield of melt rocks and their related disaggregated debris formed by the impact of a carbonaceous meteorite in the Jebel Uweinat, near the Egypt-Sudan border. At the northern end of their fluvial depository, the reworked debris co-mingled with the LDG strewnfield, likely originated from a second impact in the Gilf Kebir. The date of the diamonds-forming mullite impact melt is undetermined but tentatively linked to the 29 Ma event of the LDG, because disordered carbon + aliphatic compounds were found in a glass and in the, extraterrestrial (extrasolar) “Hypatia” from the same areas. The latter is considered as relic of the original, parent impactor.