Have I found a meteorite?

Meteorites are fragments of rock and/or metal that fall to Earth from space.

Are there different kinds of meteorites?

There are three main types of meteorites: iron meteorites, stony iron meteorites, and stony meteorites. As the names imply, iron meteorites are almost completely made of metal. Stony iron meteorites have nearly equal amounts of metal and silicate minerals. Stony meteorites contain mostly silicate minerals; they are also called ordinary chondrite meteorites. For more details, please read the information at either of these two websites:
 • The Meteoritical Society: Meteorites
 • Natural History Museum: Types of Meteorites.

Have any meteorites been found in South Dakota?

Yes, there have been three kinds of meteorites found in South Dakota. The Meteoritical Society has created an online, searchable, meteorite database (Meteoritical Bulletin Database). Information in this database has been used to create the map and the table of South Dakota meteorite data, shown below.

Fragments of some South Dakota meteorites are on display at the Museum of Geology at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City. Photos from this display are available for the Centerville McMurchie Meteorite, the Wolsey Meteorite, the Faith Meteorite, the Bennett County Meteorite, the 1941 Cavour Meteorite, the 1944 Cavour Meteorite and the Flandreau Meteorite.

How to identify a meteorite?

There are several meteorite properties that allow them to be distinguished from other rocks. For example, please see the following list copied from the United States Geological Survey website (I think I found a meteorite. How can I tell for sure?).

• Density: Meteorites are usually quite heavy for their size, since they contain metallic iron and dense minerals.
• Magnetic: Since most meteorites contain metallic iron, a magnet will often stick to them. For "stony" meteorites, a magnet might not stick, but if you hang the magnet by a string, it will be attracted.
• Unusual shape: iron-nickel meteorites are rarely rounded. Instead, they have an irregular shape with unusual pits like finger prints in their surface called "regmaglypts."
• Fusion crust: stony meteorites typically have a thin crust on their surface where it melted as it passed through the atmosphere.

It is important to note that meteorites do NOT have the following characteristics:

• Light-colored crystals: Quartz is a common, light-colored crystal in Earth's crust, but it is not found on other bodies in the solar system.
• Bubbles: volcanic rocks or metallic slag on Earth often have bubbles or vesicles in them, but meteorites do not.
• Streak: if you scratch a meteorite on an unglazed ceramic surface, it should not leave a streak. A dense rock that leaves a black or red streak probably contains the iron minerals magnetite or hematite, respectively, neither of which are typically found in meteorites.

Examples of meteorite identification quizzes are available at Do this first - Self-test checklist and Meteorite ID.

Unfortunately, the chance of finding a meteorite is very slim. Dr. Randy Korotev, a well-known meteorite specialist who recently retired from Washington University in St. Louis, has provided a vast amount of information on this topic, and it is available on the internet. For example, consider his webpage on "Meteorite Realities" as well as his "Meteorwrong" webpage.

At the present time, the South Dakota Geological Survey does not have geochemical instrumentation to identify meteorites.