Basalt

Terrestrial basalts

Basalt and related rock types like andesite and dacite are rocks that form when volcanoes erupt magma (lava) onto the surface of the earth and the magma cools.

**Basalt flows on Hawaii. Photo credit: Randy Korotev**

Terrestrial basalts come in a wide variety of textures and colors. Some have vesicles (gas bubbles); some do not. Some are gray, others are reddish or even greenish. Basalt is one of the most common rock types on Earth. Except for the coral, nearly all of the rocks of Hawaii are basalts. Much of Oregon and Idaho is covered with basalt.

**Basalt cobbles are commonly found on beaches, especially on volcanic islands (Hawaii, top). Most of the dark rocks in the bottom photo are basalts (Lake Superior). Photo credit: Randy Korotev**

Closeups of a piece of fresh basalt from New Mexico (top) and Hawaii (bottom). Sometimes the glassy surface of a fresh basalt is mistaken for a meteorite fusion crust. Neither of these rock has the rounded, aerodynamic shape of a meteorite, however, and both contain far too many vesicles for a meteorite. Photo credit: Randy Korotev

Planetary basalts

Basaltic volcanism has occurred on other terrestrial planets, too. Venus, Mars, the Moon, and some of the largest asteroids had volcanoes that produced basalt. Only about 0.9% of all meteorites are basalts but about 16% of those meteorites known as achondrites (see statistics) are basalts. Eucrites are meteorites from volcanos on large asteroids like 4-Vesta. About 16% of eucrites are unbrecciated basalts. About 5% of the lunar meteorites are unbrecciated basalts. Most, about 86%, of the Martian meteorites are basalts (all of those meteorites known as shergottites). All basalts, regardless of where they were formed, are similar because the process that formed them (melting in the interior of a planet) is the same.

In the absence of a fusion crust, the only sure way to distinguish a terrestrial (Earth) basalt from a basaltic meteorite (Moon, Mars, asteroid) is with expensive chemical or mineralogical tests.

**Monomict eucrites are basalts from an asteroid. Most are thought to come from 4 Vesta. Photo credits: M. Altmann, M. Farmer, D. Hoffmann, Meteorite Exchange**

**Martian basalts (shergottites.) Photo credits: T. Bunch, M. Farmer, J. Strope, J. Wittke, and J. Zipfel**

**Lunar basalts. Photo credits: NASA/JSC and Randy Korotev**

This handful of rocks came out of a bag sold at a garden shop. They are intended to be used in landscaping or in barbecue grills where they help distribute the heat evenly. All are vesicular basalts. Photo credit: Randy Korotev

Bottom line

If you have a basalt or other volcanic rock, then it is not a meteorite. Such rocks are very common on Earth but are uncommon among meteorites.

back to “Some Meteorite Realities”