(ConservativeHub.com) – Sometimes, what looks like just a rock turns out to be much more. A man in Australia just learned a simple stone he picked up on an excursion is more valuable than the gold he was seeking.
In 2015, David Hole was in the Goldfields region trying to find some of the precious ore when he came across an odd rock. Thinking it might have gold inside, he took it home. After failing to crack it open using various tools and techniques, he left it sitting on a shelf for six years before discovering it was a rare meteorite about 4.6 billion years old.
An Australian man kept a rock for years hoping there was gold inside. It turned out it was actually a huge meteorite! Read more: https://t.co/I4KnWb1Q3z
📷: Melbourne Museum pic.twitter.com/DdoDvjC3c8
— ScienceAlert (@ScienceAlert) November 30, 2021
Hole uncovered the rock’s true identity when he took it to the Melbourne Museum. Geologist Dermot Henry said in 37 years, he’s only seen one other meteorite. Many people bring him rocks they think are from space, but they’re usually nothing special.
Henry and fellow museum geologists named the rock Maryborough because Hole found it at Maryborough Regional Park. They published a paper about it to inform the scientific community. The specimen weighed 37.5 pounds and had a high iron composition. They have not yet determined where it originated or how long it was here before Hole discovered it, but it’s a rare gem and only the 17th meteorite found in Victoria.
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