The Willamette Meteorite, officially named WillametteMeteoritical Bulletin Database: Willamette.
The Meteoritical Society. Retrieved on August 16, 2008. and originally known as Tomanowos by the Clackamas Chinook Native American tribe, is an iron-nickel meteorite found in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

. It is the largest

meteorite A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or moon. When the original object ...

found in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and the sixth largest in the world. There was no

impact crater An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact crater ...

at the discovery site; researchers believe the meteorite landed in what is now

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

, and was transported as a

glacial erratic A glacial erratic is glacially deposited rock differing from the type of rock native to the area in which it rests. Erratics, which take their name from the Latin word ' ("to wander"), are carried by glacial ice, often over distances of hundred ...

to the

Willamette Valley The Willamette Valley ( ) is a long valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the eas ...

during the

Missoula Floods The Missoula floods (also known as the Spokane floods or the Bretz floods or Bretz's floods) were cataclysmic glacial lake outburst floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge at the end of the las ...

at the end of the last Ice Age (~13,000 years ago). It has long been held sacred by indigenous peoples of the Willamette Valley, including the federally recognized Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon (CTGRC). The meteorite is on display at the American Museum of Natural History in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, which acquired it in 1906. Having been seen by an estimated 40 million people over the years, and given its striking appearance, it is among the most famous meteorites. In 2005, the CTGRC sued to have the meteorite returned to their control, ultimately reaching an agreement that gave the tribe access to the meteorite while allowing the museum to keep it as long as they are exhibiting it.

Physical characteristics and formation

The Willamette Meteorite weighs about . It is classified as a type III iron meteorite, being composed of over 91%

iron Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...

and 7.62%

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

, with traces of

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, p ...

and

phosphorus Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Ear ...

. The approximate dimensions of the meteorite are tall by wide by deep. Most iron meteorites like Willamette have originated from the differentiated core of

planetesimal Planetesimals are solid objects thought to exist in protoplanetary disks and debris disks. Per the Chamberlin–Moulton planetesimal hypothesis, they are believed to form out of cosmic dust grains. Believed to have formed in the Solar System a ...

s or asteroids that collided with another object. Willamette has a recrystallized structure with only traces of a medium

Widmanstätten pattern Widmanstätten patterns, also known as Thomson structures, are figures of long nickel–iron crystals, found in the octahedrite iron meteorites and some pallasites. They consist of a fine interleaving of kamacite and taenite bands or ribbons ...

; it is the result of a significant impact-heating event on the parent body. The Willamette Meteorite contains higher concentrations of various metals that are quite rare in Earth's crust. For example,

iridium Iridium is a chemical element with the symbol Ir and atomic number 77. A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum group, it is considered the second-densest naturally occurring metal (after osmium) with a density of ...

, one of the least abundant elements in Earth's crust, is found in the Willamette Meteorite at a concentration of 4.7 ppm, thousands of times more concentrated than in the crust.

Emplacement and erosion

The lack of an

at the discovery site was only explained after the 1920s, with the new understanding about the

, one of the largest floods documented, caused by the collapse of an ice barrier during the last deglaciation. The meteorite presumably landed on an ice cap in what is now

or western

, and was dragged by the glacier ice to the vicinity of an ice barrier that formed across the Clark Fork River. This barrier had ponded a huge amount of water at the

Lake Missoula Lake Missoula was a prehistoric proglacial lake in western Montana that existed periodically at the end of the last ice age between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago. The lake measured about and contained about of water, half the volume of Lake Mic ...

right at the time when the meteorite reached the area and the ice barrier became unstable and breached. The resulting flood involved up to 10 million cubic meters per second of water discharge, with large blocks of ice rafting down the Columbia River and the

at the end of the last Ice Age (~13,000 years ago). Some of these ice rafts included boulders (known as ''

s'' by geologists) like the Willamette meteorite, which eventually sank in the flood waters and settled where they were found by humans. The deep crevasses of the meteorite resulted from both its high-speed atmospheric entry and its subsequent weathering. Exposed to the elements for thousands of years, rainwater interacted with the mineral

troilite Troilite is a rare iron sulfide mineral with the simple formula of FeS. It is the iron-rich endmember of the pyrrhotite group. Pyrrhotite has the formula Fe(1-x)S (x = 0 to 0.2) which is iron deficient. As troilite lacks the iron deficiency whic ...

, resulting in a form of sulfuric acid which slowly dissolved portions of the meteorite. This resulted in the gradual development of the hollows that are visible today.

Modern history

The Willamette Meteorite has been venerated by the Clackamas people since long before it was removed from its location in the Willamette Valley near the modern city of

West Linn, Oregon West Linn is a city in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States. A southern suburb within the Portland metropolitan area, West Linn developed on the site of the former Linn City, which was named after U.S. Senator Lewis F. Linn of Ste. Genevie ...

. In 1902, Ellis Hughes was the first European settler to recognize the meteorite's significance. At that time the land was owned by the Oregon Iron and Steel Company. Hughes attempted to claim ownership of the meteorite, and secretly moved it to his own land. This involved 90 days of hard work to cover the 3/4 mile (1200 m) distance. The move was discovered, and after a lawsuit, the

Oregon Supreme Court The Oregon Supreme Court (OSC) is the highest state court in the U.S. state of Oregon. The only court that may reverse or modify a decision of the Oregon Supreme Court is the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1905, Sarah Tappan Hoadley, wife of

William E. Dodge Jr. William Earl Dodge Jr. (February 15, 1832 – August 9, 1903) was an American businessman, activist, and philanthropist. For many years, he was one of two controlling partners in the Phelps Dodge Corporation, one of the largest copper mining corpo ...

, purchased the meteorite for $26,000 (around $680,000 in 2011). After displaying it at the

Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition The Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, commonly also known as the Lewis and Clark Exposition, and officially known as the Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair, was a worldwide exposition held in Portlan ...

, she donated it to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where it has been on display since 1906.Geology Tour.
University of Oregon: Museum of Natural History. Retrieved on October 31, 2007. The Clackamas people have long used the meteorite, which they call ''Tomanowos'', in ceremonies. In 1999 the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon (CTGRC), a confederation of Native American tribes, demanded that it be returned and filed an action pursuant to the

Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), Pub. L. 101-601, 25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq., 104 Stat. 3048, is a United States federal law enacted on November 16, 1990. The Act requires federal agencies and institutions tha ...

(NAGPRA) against the American Museum of Natural History. In response, the Museum filed a federal lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment against the CTGRC in 2000. An agreement with the Museum was reached later that year in which the meteorite would remain at the museum with tribal members being able to conduct a private ceremony around the meteorite once a year, and that ownership will be transferred to CTGRC should the museum cease to have the meteorite on display. In response to a student's request in 2007,

Representative Representative may refer to: Politics * Representative democracy, type of democracy in which elected officials represent a group of people * House of Representatives, legislative body in various countries or sub-national entities * Legislator, som ...

John Lim introduced a resolution that would demand that the museum return the meteorite to Oregon. The tribes said they were not consulted, they did not support the resolution, and were content with the current arrangement with the museum. The crown section of the meteorite that had been traded to the Macovich Collection for a

Martian Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. It became the most popular celestial object in fiction in the late 1800s as the Moon was evidently lifeless. At the time, the pr ...

meteorite in 1997, was planned to be auctioned in October 2007, which led to claims by the CTGRC of insensitivity. Bidders dropped out when an editorial in the Portland '' Oregonian'' newspaper asserted the CTGRC would file a lawsuit against the new owner, but the CTGRC disavowed the editorial and said they had no such intent, and that they could not stop the sale. While the newspaper printed an apology, the specimen was withdrawn. A lawsuit was filed against the newspaper in Oregon Circuit Court and failed. A , piece of the meteorite, also with a Macovich Collection provenance, was purchased in a 2006 auction and was displayed at the

Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum The Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum is an aviation museum in McMinnville, Oregon. Its exhibits include the Hughes H-4 Hercules (''Spruce Goose'') and more than fifty military and civilian aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), and spac ...

McMinnville, Oregon McMinnville is the county seat of and largest city in Yamhill County, Oregon, United States. The city is named after McMinnville, Tennessee. As of the 2019 census, the city had a population estimate of 34,743. McMinnville is at the confluence of ...

until it was returned to the Confederated Tribes of the Grande Ronde on February 22, 2019.

Mass

There is some confusion about the mass of the Willamette meteorite because of the difference between metric tons and short tons, often both called simply ''tons''. The result is that sources report different weights, ranging from to . The official American Museum of Natural History web site also reports both "15.5 tons" and "14 tons". Moreover, in 1906 the American Museum of Natural History stated that the weight of the Willamette meteorite was "at least 31,200 pounds, or about 15.6 tons".The American Museum Journal, American Museum of Natural History, 1906. After these considerations it is reasonable to guess that the real weight of the meteorite is about .

Replicas

A replica of the meteorite is in Eugene, Oregon, outside the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History on the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

campus. A 1/5 size replica stands in Fields Bridge Park in

.The Willamette Meteorite, Information Sources and Links.
Clackamas County Oregon History and Genealogy. Retrieved on August 16, 2008. The only exact replica in existence is currently installed in the Chachalu Museum at the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde (CTGR) in

Grand Ronde, Oregon Grand Ronde is a census-designated place (CDP) and unincorporated community in Polk and Yamhill counties, Oregon, United States. Historically noted as a village in Polk County, the sphere of influence and community is in both Polk and Yamhill cou ...

. The aluminum replica was CNC-milled from a 3D model produced through photogrammetry by artist Garrick Imatani, working in conjunction with the CTGR. Imatani also created an interpretation of this meteorite that is on permanent display at the University of Oregon in Straub Hall.

References

External links

On the agreement between American Museum of Natural History and the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20061024001059/http://www.jjkent.com/articles/williamite-meteorite-oregon.htm About the Williamette [sic/nowiki> Meteorite in Oregon] {{Meteorites by name Meteorites found in the United States Willamette Valley Sacred rocks Native American religion Geology of Oregon West Linn, Oregon Meteorites in culture Glacial erratics of Oregon Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community American Museum of Natural History