Recently discovered Martian meteorite has unique properties

BBC : A meteoriteâmdash;called Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034 and nicknamed “Black Beauty"âmdash;discovered in the Moroccan desert in 2011 resembles others from Mars but is distinctly different in its elemental composition, according to Carl Agee from the University of New Mexico. Unlike any of the three current classes of Martian meteorites, the specimen is a basaltic breccia composed of fragments fused together in a volcanic eruption, is made up primarily of alkali elements such as potassium and sodium, and has about 10 times more water. It is also much olderâmdash;NWA 7034 is about 2 billion years old, whereas most of the other Martian meteorites are 200 million to 400 million years old. Because of its greater age, the specimen could provide clues to the early geologic history of Mars, which may have been a lot warmer and wetter than it is now.