Théodore Andre Monod and the lost Fer de Dieu meteorite of Chinguetti, Mauritania

Abstract

Abstract Théodore Monod (1902–2000), of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, was a natural scientist with an extraordinarily wide range of interests and expertise. His early researches were chiefly in marine zoology, which he continued to pursue throughout his career. However, in 1923 he began to work in the Sahara Desert and travelled through it for thousands of kilometres on foot and camel-back collecting samples for the museum and keeping detailed journals of the geology, palaeontology, flora, fauna, prehistoric artefacts, and the customs and cultures of the peoples he met. Monod published nearly 700 technical articles in scientific journals and numerous books for general readers. He won innumerable honours in France and internationally, but only one of his books, few of his articles, and no biographical accounts of Monod's activities have been published in English. This paper focuses on his search for the Fer de Dieu , an iron meteorite said to be 40 metres high and 100 metres long, lying in the desert of Mauritania. He found no trace of it, but the meteorite remains legendary in the history of meteoritics.