Western Australia Museum | Great Meteorites

Western Australia Museum - Boola Bardip

Mundrabilla

Australia’s largest meteorite greets visitors to the entrance of the Western Australia Museum Boola Bardip in Perth.

This 12.4 ton mass was found by Mr. R.B. Wilson and A. M. Cooney in April 1966 on the Nullarbor Plain of Western Australia, north of the Transcontinental Railway.

Multiple pieces have been found, part of an iron meteor shower over 1 million years ago. A total of 22 tons of Mundrabilla pieces have been found. It is likely the metallic core of a long-destroyed asteroid. It is a group IAB complex iron, medium octahedrite.

This is a polished slice of the second largest mass of 6.1 tons. You can see that half the slice has been treated with an acid to reveal the inner iron-nickel structure.

The first piece of the meteorite was found in 1911 and weighed just 112 g. From 1911 to 1965, 7 additional small pieces were found. After 1966, further masses of 800 kg and 840 kg and 2.5 tons were found.

More about Mundrabilla

Murchison

Australia - 1969. Carbonaceous.

Part of a fireball that exploded with tremors felt and a smoke trail. A scientifically very important meteorite, it contains organic compounds and has an odour, some say, of tar or wet hay !

More about Murchison

Henbury

Australia- 1931. Iron.

This meteorite was from a crater field.

Wolf Creek

Western Australia - 1947. Iron.

It associated with a large crater called Wolfe Creek Crater. Known by the Aboriginal people for ages, and was culturally very important to them. It was brought to the attention of scientists in an aerial survey in 1947.

The crater