Meteorites are extremely rare. Nearly 100% of all finds brought in by the public turn out to not be meteorites. In the Pittsburgh region, most finds are either slag from old blast furnaces, pieces of iron ore, or other artifacts of the regional metals industry. Both iron-rich slag and iron ore can attract a magnet, which unfortunately is also a common test for meteorites.
To see if you have a meteorite, please first visit Identifying Meteorites written by meteorite expert Dr. Randy Korotev at Washington University in St Louis). In particular, check out his "meteorwrongs" pages, for one of these not-meteorites is likely what you've got.
If you still think you have a meteorite:
- Keep in mind that you most likely do not. At Pitt, only one person in 40 years has ever brought in something that turned out to be a meteorite, and this person was a geologist.
- Take a couple of well-lit (indirect natural light is best), sharply focused, high resolution photos. It is hard to identify samples from photos alone, so it is crucial that the photos be sharp and with natural colors!
- E-mail 1 to 3 of your best photos to geodept@pitt.edu. These photos will be sent out to the faculty, post-doctoral researchers, and graduate students in the hope that one of them will have the time to respond. (We can’t guarantee a response, since each of us has a never-ending series of deadlines related to teaching, research, and grants. We must meet these deadlines to fulfill our primary missions of teaching and research.)
- If you don't hear from us, and you are eager to sell your specimen, contact one of many meteorite dealers you can find on-line. Here are two:
We are unlikely to return phone calls asking for meteorite identifications because we simply cannot identify rock specimens over the phone. The most efficient thing is to send in photos; if a specimen looks like it might be a meteorite, we might then ask the finder to bring it in for closer examination.