Photos people have sent me of things that look like meteorites, 1
I have examined thousands of photos that people have sent to me over the past 20+ years. Probably for less than 1 in 1000 photos have I thought, “Yes, that might be a meteorite.” Meteorites can not be identified from photos with 100% accuracy, but all of photos below are of things I believe to be meteorites with 50-99% confidence. More than half these photos were sent by persons who found the rocks in deserts of Northern Africa or the Mideast. Only 3 or 4 were from people who claimed to have found them in North America. Several are from people who either bought them or inherited someone else’s collection.
In the captions I state the reasons I think the rock is a meteorite.
Stony meteorites
Stone 01. Rounded shape with no sharp edges. Shiny fusion crust, crust has contraction cracks (the glass cracks as it cools), and some crust has chipped off. The interior is lighter than the fusion crust. The stone fits in a person’s hand. Stony meteorites are not as large as many people think. This one is rather weathered.Stone 02. Rounded shape with no sharp edges. Minor chipping of fusion crust. Shiny fusion crust with contraction cracks.Stone 03. Rounded shape, no sharp edges. Shiny fusion crust with contraction cracks; some crust has chipped off. Exposed interior is lighter than the fusion crust. The stone fits in a person’s hand.Stone 04. Rounded shape with no sharp edges. The fusion crust is shiny, but somewhat rougher than in others depicted here. Some crust has chipped off. The interior is lighter than the fusion crust. Look closely and you can see vesicular (bubbly) fusion crust just below the missing crust. This is not common, but it happens.Stone 05. Fusion crust covers rounded shape. The fusion crust is shiny, with contraction cracks, and chipped. The exposed interior is lighter than the fusion crust.Stone 06. Rounded shape with no sharp edges, except where broken. Shiny fusion crust with contraction cracks. The interior is lighter than the fusion crust. The stone fits in someone’s hand.Stone 07. This one broke apart in the atmosphere leaving edges that were rounded by ablation after the breakup but before it landed. This one has shallow regmaglypts, but no contractions cracks.Stone 08. Rounded shape with no sharp edges. Shiny fusion crust with contraction cracks. The interior is lighter than the fusion crust. The reddish spots on the broken interior are rust from oxidation of grains the iron-nickel metal.Stone 09. The stone broke after or shortly before landing. (There is no fusion crust on the broken surface.) Fusion crust covers rounded portions of the stone and crust has contraction cracks. The exposed interior is lighter than the fusion crust. There are no linear fractures, swirls, or straight lines on the broken surface.Stone 10. Rounded shape with no sharp edges. It is more spherical than most meteorites. Shiny fusion crust with contraction cracks. The interior is lighter than the fusion crust. Below the large crack on the left the fusion crust is thin and what appear to be clasts are visible. (I would like to see the inside of this one.) The stone fits in someone’s hand.Stone 11. We cannot see the whole stone but what we see looks flatter than most. Weathered (reddish) Fusion crust with contraction cracks. The interior is lighter than the fusion crust. The stone fits in someone’s hand. Photo credit: Dawood GhasemiStone 12. The fusion crust is largely intact. There are a few regmaglypts. This appears to be an “oriented” meteorite in that it passed through the atmosphere mostly left-end-first, causing what appear to be flow lines in the fusion crust.Stone 13. Rounded shape with no sharp edges. Shiny fusion crust, crust has contraction cracks, and some crust has chipped off.Stone 14. Rounded shape with no sharp edges. Shiny fusion crust but some has chipped off. There are no contraction cracks in the crust. Minor regmaglypts.Stone 15. Rounded shape. Shiny fusion crust, but a much rougher surface than is typical. If it were not for the apparent contraction cracks, I might have said “not likely” to this one.Stone 16. Rounded shape. Shiny fusion crust. This appears to be another oriented stone with flow lines.Stone 17. Rounded shape with no sharp edges. Shiny fusion crust with few contraction cracks. Many regmaglypts. Stone 18. Shiny fusion crust covers rounded, unbroken surface. Some fusion crust has chipped off. The interior is lighter than the fusion crust. Rusty metal grains on the broken surface.Stone 19. Rounded shape with nearly complete fusion crust that is not shiny in this light. The crust has contraction cracks. Interior is lighter than the fusion crust.Stone 20. Unusually spherical stone with a cracked fusion crust. Interior is lighter than the fusion crust.Stone 21. These photos were all sent to me in 2014. All are rounded stones with nearly complete fusion crusts, but all have some fusion crust chipped off. The exposed interiors are lighter in color. Some have contraction cracks and two have regmaglypts. Sometimes the fusion crust turns reddish on meteorites that have been on Earth a long time (lower left).Stone 22. As found in the desert in Oman. Rounded, but not as smooth as many pictured here. The coating might be a desert varnish, not a fusion crust.Stone 23. Most stony meteorites are not large. This is the typical size of a stony meteorite.Stone 24. This one also has flow lines indicating that at least toward the end of its trip it was not tumbling in the atmosphere.Stone 25. Rounded, with shiny fusion crust and a few contraction cracks. The fusion crust is lighter in color than others depicted here because this meteorite is a eucrite and most of the others are ordinary chondrites.Stone 26. Partial fusion crust, contraction cracks, rusty interior.Stone 27. Mostly intact fusion crust, contraction cracks, and light-grayish interior.Stone 28. Mostly intact fusion crust, contraction cracks, light-colored, but rusty interior.Stone 29. Smooth and glassy fusion crust, contraction cracks, light-colored interior.Stone 30. Nicely rounded. Largely intact fusion crust with contraction cracks.Stone 31. No contraction cracks but many regmaglypts.Stone 32. Smooth and glassy fusion crust with contraction cracks.Stone 33. Broken stone with fusion crust and regmaglypts; interior light gray, but some rust spots.Stone 34. If this is a meteorite, the surface is unusually rough.Stone 35. Broken stone with fusion crust and regmaglypts; interior light gray.Stone 36. Smooth and glassy fusion crust, but no regmaglypts or expansion cracks, but interior is rusty.Stone 37. Broken stone with fusion crust and regmaglypts; interior light gray and rusty.Stone 38. Broken stone with fusion crust and regmaglypts; interior light gray and rusty.Stone 39. Smooth and glassy fusion crust. Appears to have broken in flight with some melting of the broken face.
Iron Meteorites
Iron 01. Some may disagree, but iron meteorites do not have fusion “crusts” so much as “patinas.” Patinas do not chip off, as on the stony meteorites above. Regmaglypts are common. I think the shiny spots are abrasions exposing the underlying shiny metal.Iron 02. Rounded, no sharp edges. Covered with regmaglypts.Iron 03. A stony meteorite would with an elongated shape like this would likely be broken apart during atmospheric entry. Nice regmaglypts. I do not remember the story about this one. The number implies that it was a former museum specimen that someone acquired and then they probably inquired of me whether I thought that it was a real meteorite.Iron 04. Rounded, no sharp edges. Covered with regmaglypts. Because the surface of an iron meteorite is not glass, there are no contraction cracks.Iron 05. Not as rounded, but no sharp edges. Covered with regmaglypts.Iron 06. No sharp edges. Regmaglypts not as distinct. A bit rusty. It may be a Campo del Cielo.Iron 07. No sharp edges. Regmaglypts not as distinct. A bit rusty – a characteristic of Campo del Cielo.Iron 08. If I recollect correctly, both these photos were sent to me by persons who either purchased or inherited the objects. From their appearance, I suspect that both are “stones” of Campo del Cielo.Iron 09. Four different, likely iron meteorites. All are rusty and have regmaglypts but no sharp edges or points. Iron 10. This photo was sent to by a mineral dealer in an email with no subject or text. Almost certainly, the object in hand is one of tens of the thousands fragments of Sikhote Alin, which fell in Siberia in 1947. There are hundreds of photos of this meteorite on line. It has a distinctive look that is hard to confuse with other iron meteorites.
