Why this rock is probably not a meteorite:
Here's a head-scratcher.
This photo shows a wooden deck with a rock embedded in it. As the
finder correctly recognized, "It would take a significant amount
of energy to shatter 1-1/2 inch redwood planking." He reasonably
surmised that the rock might be a meteorite. It certainly appears
to be a rock that fell from the sky at high speed.
The problem is that even in these photos the rock doesn't look like
any kind of meteorite. There's no fusion crust. The pieces are all
angular. The texture of the rocks is wrong. No kind of meteorite has
veining like this.
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What is it?
The finder brought this rock to a colleague of mine, an expert in
meteorites, who concluded that it is a high-temperature terrestrial
metamorphic rock.
I have no explanation for how this rock got embedded in this deck.
This is one of many stories I have heard about rocks appearing to
have fallen from the sky. It is my observation that most such rock
are about the size of a baseball or softball. That leads me to believe
that some of them were thrown by humans. I don't believe that this
one was thrown, however.
A story sent to me about this meteorwrong.
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