Click on the links below to read more about the meteorites in the Carleton B. Moore collection and view meteorite photos!
Samelia
Samelia is a IIIAB iron meteorite that fell the evening of May 20, 1921, in India. In a 1924 publication, Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor (then acting director of the Geological Survey of India) described witness accounts of the meteorite’s fall: “The fireball moved from south to north and left a white trail in the sky. […]
L’Aigle
April’s Meteorite of the Month is L’Aigle, an ordinary (L6) chondrite that fell in Orme, France on April 26, 1803. The L’Aigle meteorite fall, which produced a shower of over 3,000 stones, proved to European scientists that rocks fall from the sky. Although people had seen meteorites fall before 1803, their stories had typically been […]
Norton County
Norton County fell February 18th of 1948, on the Kansas/Nebraska border. Norton County is a rare type of meteorite called an aubrite, which is an enstatite achondrite. Aubrites are dominated by enstatite – a pyroxene mineral containing Mg, Si, and O. This mineral is white in Norton County, as opposed to the more normal green […]
Coolidge
Coolidge is a carbonaceous (C4-ungrouped) chondrite found in Kansas in 1937. According to Meteoritical Society classification, type-4 carbonaceous chondrites mostly have Mg/Si ratios near solar value, oxygen isotope compositions that plot below the terrestrial fractionation line, and abundant metamorphosed chondrules. At the Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies, collection curator and research professor Laurence Garvie deciphers […]
Camel Donga
Camel Donga is an achondrite found on the Nullarbor Plain of Western Australia in 1984. The word “donga” is a term for “campsite” in Australia. Camel Donga is a eucrite (monomict breccia), part of the HED group of meteorites (Howardites-Eucrites-Diogenites). These meteorites are believed to originate from the cooling of magma on the surface of […]
Puente-Ladron
Puente-Ladron is a type L ordinary chondrite found in Socorro County, New Mexico by Harvey H. Nininger. On May 17, 1944, H.H. Nininger stopped for a bit of lunch on a lonely stretch of New Mexico highway and, as was his habit, scanned the area around him for meteorites while eating. “I started on, but […]
Charsonville
November's Meteorite of the Month is Charsonville, an ordinary (H6) chondrite that fell in France, in 1810. According to the Meteoritical Bulletin (MB online): "On November 23, 1810, at 1:30 p.m, a meteor, coming from the north, burst over the town of Charsonville. A violent detonation then occurred, which was also heard from Orléans, Meung, […]
Bilanga
October’s Meteorite of the Month is Bilanga, an achondrite meteorite (meaning that it formed on a differentiated planetary body, and does not contain chondrules) that fell in Burkina Faso, October 27 of 1999. According to the Meteoritical Bulletin (MB84): After a widely witnessed shower, at least 25 kg of meteorites with fresh black fusion crust […]
Dashoguz
September’s Meteorite of the Month is Dashoguz, an ordinary (H5) chondrite that fell September 5, 1998. The meteorite’s fall was witnessed near the city of Daşoguz, in northern Turkmenistan, but it took several weeks of searching to find a very small crater containing just over 15 lb (7 kg) of the meteorite – all that […]
Tarda
August's Meteorite of the Month is Tarda, a carbonaceous (C2-ung) chondrite that fell in Morocco on August 25, 2020. According to the Meteoritical Bulletin (MB 109): "On Tuesday, 25 August 2020, around 2:30 pm Moroccan time (GMT+1) a fireball was widely witnessed by people in southern Morocco from Alnif, Zagora, Tazarine, and Rich. The fireball […]
