Description
5.4g fragment of this famous french meteorite fall. Sold in a box with label/certificate.
On June 15, 1821, at 3:00 p.m., a meteor was sighted across several departments in southern France.
At that same moment, two loud explosions were heard, and farmers at Libonès, near Juvinas, saw a black mass hurtling toward them. Terrified and superstitious, the peasants feared the object was an emissary of the devil. It took eight days before anyone finally got around to extracting the meteorite from its crater! It was a substantial mass—weighing around 92 kilograms—but locals and curious onlookers had already begun chipping away at the rock, hoping to find gold. A significant portion of the mass,
however, was salvaged and sent to Beaucaire, in the Gard department. According to historical accounts,
other stones fell a few kilometers away—towards Meyras,
and likely another towards Aubignas.
Interestingly, some witnesses believed that Mont Gerbier de Jonc—a mountain in the Massif Central located about thirty kilometers north of Juvinas—had collapsed!
