Is this a meteorite?
Please note that WGNHS does not offer testing of potential meteorites.
All about meteorites (https://sites.wustl.edu/meteoritesite/)
From Washington University in St. Louis, a comprehensive collection of information, photos, and a checklist to help you learn more about whether your rock is a meteorite.
Meteorite identification information (https://www.esci.umn.edu/meteorite)
The University of Minnesota provides a detailed list of questions to help people learn about their potential meteorites.
Meteorites (and meteowrongs) (https://www.ualberta.ca/science/meteorites/)
This page from the University of Alberta includes a short list of questions and a video on identifying potential meteorites
Meteorite identifications (https://sites.google.com/fieldmuseum.org/pritzkercenter/)
The Field Museum’s Robert A. Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies provides a meteorite checklist as well as information about their occasional public ID days.
More about meteorites
Geology Museum, UW-Madison (http://geoscience.wisc.edu/museum/)
The museum houses a collection of many of the meteorites found in Wisconsin.
Center for Meteorite Studies, Arizona State University (https://meteorites.asu.edu/)
Their website has educational resources about meteorites as well as photos highlighting some of their collection of more than 40,000 specimens.
Rocks from Space: Meteorites and Meteorite Hunters (second edition), by O. Richard Norton, 1998, Mountain Press Publishing Company, 447 pages
An exhaustive but approachable discussion of meteorite science. Covers meteorite discoveries and profiles the individuals involved.
Meteorite impact craters
Terrestrial impact craters (www.solarviews.com/eng/tercrate.htm)
Includes a photo gallery profiling over a dozen of the world’s largest impact craters.
Earth Impact Database, Planetary and Space Science Center, University of New Brunswick
(http://www.passc.net/EarthImpactDatabase/)
Lists all confirmed meteorite impacts in the world.
Scientific papers written about Wisconsin’s Rock Elm impact structure
—Rock Elm structure, Pierce County, Wisconsin: A possible cryptoexplosion structure, William S. Cordua, 1985, Geology 13:372–374
—The Rock Elm meteorite impact structure, Wisconsin: Geology and shock-metamorphic effects in quartz, Bevan M. French, William S. Cordua, and J.B. Plescia, GSA Bulletin, January 2004, 116:200–218
—Geology of the Rock Elm Complex, Pierce County, Wisconsin, William S. Cordua and Thomas J. Evans, 2007, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey Open-File Report 2007-02.
Barringer Meteor Crater, Arizona (barringercrater.com)
At 50,000 years old, the Barringer crater is still quite fresh, geologically speaking; it shows none of the weathering seen at Rock Elm.
