A Gallery of Meteorwrongs

Vastly more meteorwrongs are found than meteorites. This should be no surprise. A host of Earth objects—natural and manmade—do indeed look like meteorites, and they are just waiting to be found and to confuse you. Some objects are so similar that even expert meteorite hunters must wait for an answer following sophisticated analysis. But if you are a beginning meteorite hunter, you can easily be fooled by manmade objects such as rusted iron artifacts, slag from ore processing, clinkers from coal burning furnaces, and by natural objects such as basalt that’s attracted to a magnet, chondrule-like spheres in volcanic rocks, and rocks with a coating of desert varnish that looks like dark fusion crust. The ability to test and distinguish a meteorite from a meteorwrong takes time, practice, and knowledge. Let’s look at a few meteorwrongs and discuss why they are not meteorites (Figures 9.1–9.15).