Places you can Find Meteorites

The Best Place to find meteorites is right here. Ok, so maybe you want to go find yor own instead of buying it. Maybe you even want to find some so you can sell them and put some cash in your pocket. Chances are if you have a little patience and sense of adventure, you will find one (or more).

Where do you look? Beleive it or not almost anywhere! Some places are easier than others. Lots fall in the ocean, but I doubt very many have been found there for obvious reasons. I happen to live in the southeast U.S. and it’s not easy to find them here. There is too much weathering and they are usually buried, unrecognizable or covered in brush. I wish I lived in the western United States. An arid climate is ideal for hunting. Minimal plant cover and less weathering and erosion makes hunting metorites much easier.  Rusting of Iron meteorites and weathering of stoney meteorites makes them harder to identify. So if you really want to up your chances, look in the southwest U.S. or any desert like area. Even the Artic has been a very good place. Very many have been found there. A little too cold for me though, and far. Africa is a hot spot to, but I am sticking to the U.S.

There are a large number of estimated falls each year. If you take into account millions of years of meteorites falling to the ground, then you can see how many are yet to be found. A study done in 1996 (looking at the number of meteorites found in deserts over time) calculated that for objects in the 10 gram to 1 kilogram size range, 2900-7300 kilograms per year hit Earth. They also estimate between 36 and 166 meteorites larger than 10 grams fall to Earth per million square kilometers per year. Over the whole surface area of Earth, that translates to 18,000 to 84,000 meteorites bigger than 10 grams per year.

There are Strewn Maps available from a few places that may help in your hunt.

Metal detectors are a useful tool in finding meteorites. Many meteorites contain iron and some of the easiest to find are the Nickel-Iron type because they look and feel different than surround “Earth” rock. Since many are buried in to ground, metal detectors can aid in the search. Stoney meteorites although more abundant are a little harder to find since they look more like normal rocks. So don’t forget the metal detector and brush up on identifying them and have fun. It’s great for the whole family.

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First, what’s the difference between a meteor and a meteorite? Meteors or “shooting stars” are anything from dust to larger objects from space that streak through sky without hitting the ground. Meteors heat up as they pass through the atmosphere and create the light that you see as they shoot by. They either burn up or fly by into space again.

Meteorites are large enough and on the right trajectory to make it to the ground. If you think you found a meteorite, it’s possible, but since meteors never reach Earth, you will never find a meteor. Unless you are in space of course.

With that said, How do you know if you have a meteorite? The answer is not simple, but here is a couple of questions to ask yourself:

Is it black or brown and fairly smooth, without holes on the outside?

Is it solid and compact? (not porous)

Is it heavy compared to an average rock of the same size?

Is it attracted by a magnet?

Is it made of metal or does it show metallic iron specks on a broken, cut, or polished surface?

If you answer “yes” to all of the above questions, the object may be a meteorite. If most or all of the answers are “no”, the object is most likely not a meteorite. 

Another test is the Streak Test.

Some rocks can be misleading, like hematite and magnetite. Each mineral leaves a characteristic colored streak when scraped along the unglazed surface of a ceramic tile or coffee mug. Hematite leaves a red-brown streak and magnetite leaves a gray-black streak. Meteorites will not leave a streak unless they are highly weathered. (but weathered ones can leave a brown streak)

Tektites are sometimes mistaken for meteorites. See “What is a Tektite”

One of the hardest types of meteorites to identify are the “Stoney” type. They ironically are the most abundant. They are similar to Earth rock, but are usually heavier. The most outstanding feature is a melted exterior called a “fusion crust”. This is usually a thin black melted coating on the outside. This crust can sometimes be brown from rusted iron content.

Iron type meteorites are more rare to find and are made almost entirely of nickel-iron. These meteorites will be black or brown on the outside. They will be very heavy and a magnet will stick strongly to them. If you file or grind on them they will show metal like any other piece of iron that is rusted. Because of this they can easily be confussed with old junk that has been rusting for a long time.

Iron meteorites come in all shapes and sizes. They commonly have “regmaglyphs” -depressions resembling thumb prints on the outside.

Stoney-Iron Meteorites are a somewhere in the middle between stoney and iron types as the name suggests. They are heavy because of the iron content and usually rusted on the surface. They are often confused with slag from furnaces.

If it still looks like you may have a meteorite, you may want to get a professional to look at it or a piece of it. .

Iron Meteorite

Stoney Meteorite