Collection highlights
Click on the links below to read more about the meteorites in the Carleton B. Moore collection and view meteorite photos!
Crescent
Crescent is a CM2 carbonaceous chondrite that fell in Oklahoma, the evening of August 17th, 1936. The associated fireball was visible in Texas and Kansas, as well as Oklahoma, and the meteorite’s recovery was immediately organized. While the first stone, a 73-gram chondrite in fresh condition, was collected three days after the fall (by a…
Thika
Thika is an ordinary (L6) chondrite that fell in central Kenya the morning of July 16, 2011. According to the Meteoritical Bulletin (MB 100): A bright fireball in multiple pieces was observed from southern Kenya traveling to the northwest around 10 am on the July 16, 2011. Residents around Kiambu County in the Thika District…
Nakhla
Nakhla is a martian achondrite that fell June 28th, 1911, in Al Buhayrah, Egypt. At the time of the fall, a newspaper article was published claiming the meteorite had hit a dog on entry. This was never proven, but did inspire a Peanuts cartoon strip, in which Linus and Charlie Brown discuss the meteorite striking…
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,…
