The Willamette Meteorite, officially named Willamette
[Meteoritical 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 so ...
of
Oregon
Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...
. It is the largest
meteorite
A meteorite is a rock (geology), rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical ...
found in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
and the sixth largest in the world.
There was no
impact crater
An impact crater is a depression (geology), depression in the surface of a solid astronomical body formed by the hypervelocity impact event, impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal c ...
at the discovery site; researchers believe the meteorite landed in what is now
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
or
Montana
Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...
, and was transported as a
glacial erratic
A glacial erratic is a glacially deposited rock (geology), rock differing from the type of country rock (geology), rock native to the area in which it rests. Erratics, which take their name from the Latin word ' ("to wander"), are carried by gla ...
to the
Willamette Valley
The Willamette Valley ( ) is a 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 east, the ...
during the
Missoula Floods 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
The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon (CTGR) is a federally recognized tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau. They consist of at least 27 Native American tribes with long historical ties to present-day wes ...
(CTGR).
The meteorite is on display at the
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, 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 CTGR 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; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...
and 7.62%
nickel
Nickel is a chemical element; it has 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 slo ...
, with traces of
cobalt
Cobalt is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), 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. ...
and
phosphorus
Phosphorus is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol P and atomic number 15. All elemental forms of phosphorus are highly Reactivity (chemistry), reactive and are therefore never found in nature. They can nevertheless be prepared ar ...
. 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. Believed to have formed in the Solar System about 4.6 billion years ago, they aid study of its formation.
Formation
A widely accepted theory of pla ...
s or
asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...
s 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 Phase (matter), phases of nickel–iron, found in the octahedrite shapes of iron meteorite crystals and some pallasites.
Iron meteorites are very often formed ...
; 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; it has the symbol Ir and atomic number 77. This very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum group, is considered the second-densest naturally occurring metal (after osmium) with a density ...
, 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
impact crater
An impact crater is a depression (geology), depression in the surface of a solid astronomical body formed by the hypervelocity impact event, impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal c ...
at the discovery site was only explained after the 1920s, with the new understanding about the
Missoula Floods, one of the largest floods documented. These floods were caused by the collapse of an ice barrier during the last deglaciation.
The meteorite presumably landed on an ice cap in what is now
Montana
Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...
or western
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
, and was dragged by the glacier ice to the vicinity of an ice barrier that formed across the
Clark Fork River
The Clark Fork, or the Clark Fork of the Columbia River, is a river in the U.S. states of Montana and Idaho, approximately long. It is named after William Clark of the 1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition. The largest river by volume in Montana, it ...
. This barrier had ponded a huge amount of water at
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 Mi ...
right at the time when the meteorite reached the area and the ice barrier became unstable and breached. The resulting flood involved up to per second of water discharge, with large blocks of ice rafting down the
Columbia River
The Columbia River (Upper Chinook language, Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin language, Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river headwater ...
and the
Willamette Valley
The Willamette Valley ( ) is a 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 east, the ...
at the end of the last Ice Age (~13,000 years ago).
Some of these ice rafts included boulders (known as 'glacial erratic' 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 ...
, resulting in a form of
sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen, ...
which slowly dissolved portions of the meteorite. This resulted in the gradual development of the hollows that are visible today.
Modern history
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 distance. The move was discovered, and after a lawsuit, the
Oregon Supreme Court
The Oregon Supreme Court (OSC) is the highest State court (United States), 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. held that Oregon Iron and Steel Company was the legal owner.
In 1905, Sarah Tappan Hoadley, wife of
William E. Dodge Jr., purchased the meteorite for $26,000 . After displaying it at the
Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, she donated it to the
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...
in New York City, where it has been on display since 1906.
In 1998, museum curators cut a section from the crown of the meteorite.
That section was traded to a private collector for a piece of a
Martian meteorite
A Martian meteorite is a rock that formed on Mars, was ejected from the planet by an impact event, and traversed interplanetary space before landing on Earth as a meteorite. , 277 meteorites had been classified as Martian, less than half a perce ...
.
[
In 1999, the ]Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon
The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon (CTGR) is a federally recognized tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau. They consist of at least 27 Native American tribes with long historical ties to present-day wes ...
(CTGR), 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 includes three major sets of provisions. The "re ...
(NAGPRA) against the American Museum of Natural History. In response, the Museum filed a federal lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment against the CTGR 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 CTGR should the museum cease to have the meteorite on display.
In 2006, a , piece of the meteorite, derived from the above noted crown section, was purchased at auction and was displayed at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon
McMinnville is the county seat of and the most populous city in Yamhill County, Oregon, Yamhill County, Oregon, United States at the base of the Oregon Coast Range. The city is named after McMinnville, Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States cens ...
, until it was returned to the CTGR on February 22, 2019.
In early 2007, in response to a student's request, Representative 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.
In October 2007, plans to auction the crown section led to claims by the CTGR of insensitivity. Bidders dropped out when an editorial in the Portland '' Oregonian'' newspaper asserted the CTGR would file a lawsuit against the new owner, but the CTGR 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.
Mass
Different sources report different weights of the Willamette Meteorite, ranging from to . Circa 2008, pages of the American Museum of Natural History website stated both "15.5 tons" and "14 tons". There are differences between the metric ton
The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the sh ...
(), short ton
The short ton (abbreviation: tn
or st), also known as the US ton, is a measurement unit equal to . It is commonly used in the United States, where it is known simply as a ton; however, the term is ambiguous, the single word "ton" being variously ...
(), and long ton
The long ton, also known as the imperial ton, displacement ton,Dictionary.com - ''"a unit for measuring the displacement of a vessel, equal to a long ton of 2240 pounds (about 1016 kg) or 35 cu. ft. (1 cu. m) of seawater."'' or British ton, is a ...
(), each of which may simply be called a "ton". In 1906, the American Museum of Natural History stated that the weight of the meteorite was "at least 31,200 pounds, or about 15.6 tons",[''The American Museum Journal'', American Museum of Natural History, 1906.] consistent with American usage of "ton" usually meaning the short ton. , the American Museum of Natural History website gives the weight as "15.5 tons".
Replicas
An inexact replica, known as '' Brown and Black Asteroid'', is on display in Eugene, Oregon
Eugene ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lane County, Oregon, United States. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie River (Oregon), McKenzie and Willamette River, Willamette rivers, ...
, 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 university, public research university in Eugene, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1876, the university is organized into nine colleges and schools and offers 420 undergraduate and gra ...
campus.[Geology Tour.](_blank)
University of Oregon: Museum of Natural History. Retrieved on October 31, 2007.
A one-fifth-size replica stands in Fields Bridge Park in 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, Oregon, Linn City, which was named after U.S. Senator Lewis F. Linn ...
.
The only exact replica of the meteorite was created circa 2018 by Garrick Imatani, an artist and assistant professor at Southern Oregon University
Southern Oregon University (SOU) is a public university in Ashland, Oregon. It was founded in 1872 as the Ashland Academy, has been in its current location since 1926, and was known by nine other names before assuming its current name in 1997.Kre ...
, through a process involving photogrammetry
Photogrammetry is the science and technology of obtaining reliable information about physical objects and the environment through the process of recording, measuring and interpreting photographic images and patterns of electromagnetic radiant ima ...
of the original at the American Museum of Natural History, via cooperation with the CTGR, and 3D printing
3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...
. Imatani also created an interpretation of the meteorite that is on permanent display at the University of Oregon in Straub Hall.
See also
* Glossary of meteoritics
This is a glossary of terms used in meteoritics, the science of meteorites.
#
* 2 Pallas – an asteroid from the asteroid belt and one of the likely parent bodies of the CR meteorites.
* 4 Vesta – second-largest asteroid in the asteroid bel ...
* List of largest meteorites on Earth
* List of individual rocks
References
Further reading
*
*
*
External links
The Willamette Meteorite
at amnh.org
''Ancient Aliens'': Meteorite Message from the Sky Gods (Season 13)
from History Channel
History (formerly and commonly known as the History Channel) is an American pay television television broadcaster, network and the flagship channel of A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney General Entertainme ...
via YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
{{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
Native American history of Oregon