# Boston College dates Mars shergottite NWA 13441 at 1.273 billion years, filling sample gap

_Sunday, August 9, 2026 at 10:20 AM EDT · Science · Latest · Tier 2 — Notable_

![Boston College dates Mars shergottite NWA 13441 at 1.273 billion years, filling sample gap — Primary](https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/2016/mars.png)

Boston College scientists dated Martian meteorite Northwest Africa 13441 to about 1.273 billion years and linked it to a previously unsampled source on Mars, phys.org reported on a study in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.

Most dated shergottites are younger than 600 million years or about 2.4 billion years old, leaving a multi-hundred-million-year gap with no shergottite samples. Coauthor Ethan Baxter said no other Martian meteorite of this type is 1.27 billion years old. The rock was found in Algeria in 2019; Baxter's Center for Isotope Geochemistry analyzed a sample with colleagues at Appalachian State, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and The Open University.

Neodymium isotopes match the initial solar system value represented by chondrites, unlike other shergottites, suggesting a deep Martian reservoir that stayed largely unaltered since early planetary formation. Doctoral candidate Dylan M. Seal said the age fills a roughly 2-billion-year gap for magmatic and volcanic activity on Mars. The paper DOI is 10.1016/j.gca.2026.06.035.

## Sources

- [phys.org](https://phys.org/news/2026-08-rare-mars-meteorite-billion-year.html)
- [Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2026.06.035)

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