The Sutter's Mill strewn field
A fragile carbonaceous fall in California gold country, found with the help of weather radar.
Key facts
- Fell
- 22 April 2012, just before 8 in the morning
- Where
- around Coloma and Lotus, California
- Recovered
- about 1 kilogram in several dozen pieces
- Field
- a wooded, hilly area several kilometres long
- Type
- Carbonaceous chondrite, CM2
The fall
A brilliant daytime fireball crossed California and Nevada at about 28 kilometres per second, one of the fastest entry speeds for any recovered meteorite, and broke apart high above the Sierra Nevada foothills.
The ellipse
Weather radars detected clouds of fragments falling through the air, and the radar echoes showed searchers where to look in the wooded hills around Coloma.
Where the big and small pieces landed
Only about a kilogram survived, in several dozen pieces, the largest of a few hundred grams. Some were found on roads and in a car park just before heavy rain, which can damage this kind of meteorite within days.
The law
A meteorite in the United States belongs to the owner of the land. Searchers worked with landowners' permission, and collecting on park land is not allowed.
The full story of Sutter's Mill
Related pages
Glossary: Strewn field, Strewn field map, Fusion crust, Meteorite ownership