Meteorites in the United States

Finds & Falls

According to the data base of the Meteoritical Society, 1530 verified meteorites have been found in the United States (finds + falls as of July, 2009). Below is a map depicting how many are from each state.

Many of the meteorites were found as multiple stones, sometimes years apart. The total number of individual stones is not known but is probably several times the number of meteorites. (By convention, if a meteoroid breaks apart in the atmosphere or when it hits the earth, all the fragments are considered a single meteorite with one name.)

The earliest find is Havana, an iron meteorite that was found by native Americans in prehistoric times and made into beads. The beads were later found in the Dickson Mounds archaeological site near Havana, Illinois, in the 1940's.

Bottom line: Only 1530 meteorites have been found and verified in the U.S. in the past 202 years. That's 7.6 per year.

Falls

There have been 141 observed and recovered meteorite falls in the U.S. in the past 202 years. The first was Weston (Connecticut) in 1807.

Note that although there were fewer people and the country was less settled during the first 100 years, the number of falls from 1807 through 1906 (52) is not much less than the number of falls between 1907 and 2007 (88).

Masses

The histogram below shows the distribution of meteorite masses for the 1522 U.S. meteorites for which the mass is known. Masses range from 0.5 grams (0.02 oz) for Cuddeback Dry Lake 006 (H6) to ~30 metric tons for the many pieces of the Canyon Diablo iron. At 15.5 metric tons (34,000 lbs.), Willamette (an iron) is the largest single "stone."

The most common mass range for U.S. meteorites is 4-8 kg (9-19 lbs). Iron meteorites tend to be more massive than stony meteorites. Note that altough 24% of the meteorites from the U.S. are irons, mesosiderites, and pallasites, only 4% of the U.S. falls (6 of the 141) are irons, mesosiderites, and pallasites (5 irons and 1 mesosiderite).