Rock used as doorstop revealed to be meteorite worth $100K
- by Michele Ross
- in Sci-tech
- — Oct 5, 2018
The man then chose to take his rock to Mona Sirbescu, a geology faculty member in earth and atmospheric sciences at Central Michigan University.
The rock arrived on Earth sometime in the 1930s, according its owner, who obtained it in 1988 when he bought a farm in Edmore, about 30 miles southwest of Mount Pleasant. And now a man in Grand Rapids just found out the meteorite he has from that impact is worth at least $100,000.
The man told Sirbescu that he kept the rock for the next 30 years, even after moving away from the farm. She examined it and determined the meteorite was 88 percent iron and 12 percent nickel. He added the man buying the property could have it.
"I walked in there and there's this rock and i said you got everything all cleaned up but what's this? and he said oh that's a meteorite", says David, who owns the meteorite.
Central Michigan University said the meteorite's owner has pledged to give 10 percent of a sale's proceeds to fund Earth and atmospheric sciences students at the university, which would technically make it a schoolhouse rock. This is the rags-to-riches story of a rock from outer space.
Even though Dr. Sirbescu knew exactly what it was, it had to be sent to the Smithsonian Museum for verification, it wasn't until Thursday word came back it definitively is a meteorite, the 6th largest ever found in MI. In the morning, the farmer and his father found the crater and dug out the still-warm meteorite. For the past thirty years, he has used it as a doorstop and sent it off to school with his children for show-and-tell.
The man reportedly hasn't figured out exactly where the meteorite will end up, but a number of institutions are apparently considering purchasing it from him for display. "I wonder how much mine is worth", he said.
Then, "I said, wait a minute".
Now the Smithsonian museum is considering buying the space rock, and it could fetch as much as $100,000, the release says.
Mazurek says that when he sells the meteorite, he'll donate some of the money to the university.
