Collection highlights
Click on the links below to read more about the meteorites in the Carleton B. Moore collection and view meteorite photos!
Tagish Lake
Tagish Lake is a C2-ungrouped carbonaceous chondrite that fell in Canada in 2000. According to the Meteoritical Bulletin (MB 84), the Tagish Lake fall was preceded by a bright fireball visible in northern British Columbia and the southern Yukon, and loud explosions the morning of January 18th, 2000. The meteoroid detonated at an altitude of…
Dhajala
Dhajala is an ordinary chondrite (H3.8) that fell in Sayla Taluka, India. According to the Meteoritical Bulletin (MB55), at roughly 8:40pm on January 28, 1976, a very bright fireball was observed near Dhajala. The fireball was significantly brighter than the full moon that night, and made a hissing sound. Detonations were also heard, and the…
Ivuna
Ivuna is a carbonaceous chondrite (CI1)that fell in Mbeya, Tanzania the evening of December 16, 1938. While multiple stones may have fallen, only one 705 g piece was ever recovered. Ivuna is the type specimen for the CI chondrite group of meteorites, which are extremely rare; only 9 are known to exist on Earth. CI…
Bath Furnace
Bath Furnace is an ordinary (L6) chondrite meteorite that fell the evening of November 15th, 1902, in Bath County, Kentucky. According to Henry A. Ward (1903), the fireball was readily visible as far south as Georgia and Louisiana, and as far north as Ohio, and was witnessed by two different scientific observors, in Ohio and…
Vermillion
Vermillion is an ungrouped pallasite that was found by farmers in Marshall County, Kansas, while planting a field (MB 80). Although the 34.36 kg meteorite was discovered in 1991, it was not recognized as a pallasite until 1995. Vermillion is an unusual pallasite in that it contains 86 volume-percent FeNi-metal and 14 vol.% silicate minerals,…
New Orleans
New Orleans is an ordinary (H5) chondrite that fell in Louisiana, in 2003. According to the Meteoritical Bulletin (MB88): On the afternoon of September 23rd 2003, a meteorite crashed through the two-story home of Ray and Judy Fausset, who were not at home at the time. Neighbors said that they heard a "terrific noise." Two…
Nobleborough
Nobleborough is an achondrite (eucrite-pm) meteorite that fell August 7th, 1823, in Maine. It was the first recorded meteorite fall in Maine, and the second ever in the United States. An eye witness mistook the sound of the meteorite's entry into Earth's atmosphere for musket fire, and a nearby flock of sheep was startled by…
Chela
Chela is an ordinary chondrite (H4) that fell in the Kahama district of Tanzania around noon on July 12th, 1988. According to the Meteoritical Bulletin (MB 68), locals were alerted to the fall by a loud noise and detonations. They collected several of the fallen stones, and some were sent to the police and to…
Richmond
Richmond is an ordinary (LL5) chondrite that fell June 4th, 1828 in Virginia. After an explosion mistaken for a cannon boom, a rolling rumble was then followed by the fall of a small stone and the creation of ~30 cm deep crater ~200 m away from some workers in a field. Dietrich, R. V. (1990)…
Puente-Ladron
Puente-Ladron is an ordinary (L6) 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 turned…
