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Meteorite Identification

Meteorites are extremely rare.  Nearly 100% of all finds brought in by the public turn out to not be meteorites.  In Pennsylvania, most finds are either slag from old blast furnaces, pieces of iron ore, or other artifacts of the region's metals industry.  Both iron-rich slag and iron ore can attract a magnet, which unfortunately is also a common test for meteorites.

To see if you have a meteorite, please visit Identifying Meteorites written by meteorite expert Dr. Randy Korotev at Washington University in St Louis.  In particular, check out his "meteorwrongs" pages, for one of these not-meteorites is most probably what you've got.  Note:  You may have to break open your sample to see its fresh interior.  (You could instead use a tile saw or an angel grinder with a diamond blade to neatly cut off a small corner.)  The key is to very closely examine the interior of your rock, and compare it to the meteorites on line.  In particular, the most common kind of meteorite, the chondrite, contains roughly 1 mm-diameter spheres, but these can be hard to see.

If you still think you have a meteorite:

  1. Keep in mind that you most likely do not.  At Pitt, only one person in 40 years has ever brought in something that turned out to be a meteorite, and that person was a geologist.
  2. Take a couple of well-lit (indirect natural light is best), sharply focused, high resolution photos.  It is hard to identify samples from photos alone, so it is crucial that the photos be in focus and with natural colors!
  3. We are not experts at meteorite identification.  Even if we were, most meteorite experts at universities get dozens and dozens of e-mailed requests to identify samples that are almost 100% not meteorites.  Given that each of faculty member has a never-ending series of deadlines related to teaching, research, and grants, academic experts are unlikely to respond to your email.  So what should you do?
  4. We don't have a perfect solution.  Perhaps your local natural history museum has days in which the staff identify samples brought in from the public.  Perhaps you have a rock shop nearby that sells meteorites.  See if they can put you in contact with their supplier, and this person may be an expert in meteorites.  Finally, you could send your photos to one of the many meteorite dealers you can find on-line.  Here are two: