E AST O REGONIAN
WEEKEND, JANUARY 19, 2019
A meteor streaks through the night sky during the Perseid meteor shower early Monday morning, Aug. 12, 2013, near Meacham. The Perseid meteor shower is an annual
event that occurs every August when the Earth passes through the debris trail left by the comet Swift-Tuttle.
E.J. Harris Photo/East Oregonian, File
MORROW METEORITE
Portland museum
trades for piece of
Eastern Oregon’s
astrological history
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
One of Eastern Oregon’s
oldest and most-traveled resi-
dents is back in the state for all
to see.
Some 460 million years
ago, a collision in the vastness
of the asteroid belt between
Mars and Jupiter hurled a
chunk of rock on a trajectory
toward Earth. Washington resi-
dents Donald and Debbie Wes-
son discovered that meteorite
in 1999 in a ditch in Morrow
County. The space rock resided
in private hands and often
out of the public eye. That
changed in December when
the Rice Northwest Museum of
Rocks and Minerals, Hillsboro,
acquired the 40-pound Mor-
row County Meteorite.
“We made a deal where we
traded for it,” Rice executive
director Julian Gray said. “And
we are ecstatic.”
The Rice had the piece on
loan from mineral collector
Ed Thompson, and Gray said
the museum wanted to own
it outright for years. Meteor-
ites from the moon and Mars
can go for $1,000 a gram, but
even common meteorites sell
for a few dollars a gram. At
near 18,200 grams, Gray said,
the Morrow County Meteor-
ite was outside what the Rice
could aff ord to pay. But there
was a way.
“We had a meteorite from
Gibeon, Africa, and they
wanted it — badly,” Gray said,
“and were willing to trade us
for that meteorite and give us
a replacement.”
The museum gave its 200-
pound Gibeon piece for the
Morrow County specimen and
a 125-pound Campo del Cielo
iron meteorite. Most meteorite
displays are hands off , but not
the Campo del Cielo.
“We love having these touch
pieces that allow museum vis-
itors to actually touch some-
thing that has been in outer
space,” Gray said.
The Rice also is pretty keen
on the Morrow County Mete-
orite. Gray said six meteorites
have been found in Oregon,
and the Rice has displays of
fi ve, although some are only a
few pieces. The Cascadia Mete-
orite Laboratory at Portland
State University analyzed the
Morrow County specimen in
2010, declaring it the real deal
and naming it Morrow County.
Gray said Wesson has never
revealed the exact location of
where he found it in the midst
of wheat county.
“That’s kind of frustrating
for us because scientists like to
be exact,” he said.
The meteorite is the fi rst
found east of the Cascades and
the second-largest from Ore-
gon. The largest is the 32,000-
pound Willamette Meteorite,
earning it the title of largest in
North America. The American
Museum of Natural History in
New York City has it on perma-
nent display.
The Morrow County is an
L6 ordinary chondrite, or,
Gray said more simply, a stony
meteorite. But there is plenty
that makes it extraordinary.
The Morrow County is an
oriented meteorite, meaning it
did not tumble on its fi ery fall
through earth’s atmosphere
but stayed in one position.
Gray explained the heat and
friction from the drop melted
the surface and rounded the
front edge, creating fl ow lines
that dripped off the back. The
Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory
called the Morrow County’s
cone shape “very nice for such
a large specimen.” Gray said
NASA looked to the shape of
oriented meteorites to create
return capsules to bring astro-
nauts home from space.
Weathering gave the mete-
orite a yellow tint. The Casca-
dia lab reported the look is dif-
ferent from meteorites from
the deserts in Africa or Antarc-
tica, and the Morrow County
shows evidence a farm plow
struck it.
Gray also said the analysis
revealed the structure of the
meteorite recorded the tre-
mendous collision that created
it so long ago and far away. He
said meteorites reveal much
more.
Photo contributed by the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals
The Morrow County Meteorite now is on public display at the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and
Minerals, Hillsboro.
Photo contributed by the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals
Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals curator Leslie Moclock, left, and mineral collector Ed
Thompson show off the Morrow County Meteorite. The museum traded with Thompson in December
to acquire the rock from space that was discovered in 1999 in Morrow County.
“We actually know the age
of the earth from meteorites,”
he said, and they allow us
to see how the solar system
changed over time. He said
we know more about Mars
and the Moon from meteorites
than from samples from their
surfaces. The Apollo missions
to the Moon, for example, vis-
ited six sites, and only one
mission included a geologist.
Gray said meteorites from the
Moon provide a much wider
sampling.
He said he calls meteorites
“rocks from space,” and the
Morrow County is a “very cool
rock.”
You can see it at the Rice
Museum, at 26385 N.W. Grov-
eland Drive, Hillsboro, which
is open to the public 1-5 p.m.
Wednesday through Sunday.
Gray said the museum also has
the world’s largest opal-fi lled
thunderegg from Opal Butte
near Heppner. For more infor-
mation, visit https://ricenorth-
westmuseum.org/