{"id":10912,"date":"2024-05-21T07:46:25","date_gmt":"2024-05-21T12:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=10912"},"modified":"2024-05-21T07:46:25","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T12:46:25","slug":"exceptional-meteorite-plowed-up-from-a-dane-county-field-finds-new-home-in-uw-madison-geology-museum","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/exceptional-meteorite-plowed-up-from-a-dane-county-field-finds-new-home-in-uw-madison-geology-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Exceptional meteorite, plowed up from a Dane County field, finds new home in UW-Madison Geology Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Farmers Jan Shepel (at near left) and Jim Koch (in wheelchair) flank a 110-pound iron meteorite sitting on their family dining table at their home and Vienna EqHo Farm in the Town of Vienna, Wis. Included in the background, from left to right, are Shepel\u2019s sister, Laurie Shepel; Carrie Eaton, curator of the UW Geology Museum; science writer Will Cushman; Noriko Kita, a distinguished scientist and meteorite expert from UW\u2013Madison; and UW Geology Museum Director Rich Slaughter. At near right is Joe Zanter, a metallurgical engineer and Laurie Shepel\u2019s husband. Photo: Jeff Miller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

VIENNA, Wis. \u2014 It was a balmy spring day in May 2009 when Jim Koch\u2019s plow kicked up an unusually hefty rock.<\/p>\n

Koch was prepping a field for alfalfa on his farm in the Town of Vienna just a short drive north of Madison. At first, he didn\u2019t notice the rock. But after stopping the plow and taking to the field by foot to pick stones out of the freshly tilled soil, Koch noticed a knobby one poking through the dirt. When he bent to grab it, Koch immediately sensed that something about the rock was distinct.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thinking, \u2018this is quite heavy,’\u201d says Koch. \u201cIt was uniquely different and caught my attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turns out, Koch had just discovered a meteorite, and not just any space rock: It\u2019s the largest iron meteorite classified in the United States since 1981. The hunk of iron weighs in at nearly 110 pounds, is Wisconsin\u2019s 15th classified meteorite and is the first ever recorded in Dane County.<\/p>\n

Even more exciting, the meteorite still carries scars from its fiery entry through Earth\u2019s atmosphere \u2014 rare features for an iron meteorite. Those marks etched into the ancient rock\u2019s surface just before it crashed with a thud on what would one day become Vienna EqHo Farm, where Koch and his wife, Jan Shepel, raise dairy cattle and horses.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>
A small, crosscut section of the Vienna meteorite. Photo by Jeff Miller\/UW-Madison<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fifteen years after making their discovery, Koch and Shepel are now sharing their find with the public after agreeing to sell the meteorite at a price significantly below its market value to the\u00a0University of Wisconsin Geology Museum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The meteorite will go on temporary display beginning April 6, coinciding with the Geology Museum\u2019s open house during the annual\u00a0UW Science Expeditions<\/a>\u00a0and this year\u2019s\u00a0175th Anniversary Community Open House<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The agreement between Koch and Shepel and the museum represents a generous donation by the couple, who could have sold it to a dealer for a much higher price, and several other museum supporters who funded the purchase. It will allow the museum\u2019s 60,000 annual visitors to get up close with a unique piece of Wisconsin\u2019s natural history, just a dozen miles from where it was discovered.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re so excited to welcome this incredible find to our collection,\u201d says Carrie Eaton, curator of the UW Geology Museum. \u201cThis meteorite will excite and intrigue thousands of people every year, from school-aged visitors to UW students and the general public. It\u2019s a special thing to get to share with our visitors a piece of the early solar system that came to rest right here in our neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Vienna meteorite, as it\u2019s provisionally called according to the longstanding convention that meteorites be named for the place where they\u2019re found, will eventually have its own permanent exhibit in the museum, Eaton says. That will involve building a new display case because the meteorite is so large it can\u2019t squeeze into the museum\u2019s current meteorite case.<\/p>\n

While the meteorite\u2019s size and proximity to Madison are compelling, Eaton says it\u2019s the rare features on its surface that make the rock such an exciting museum specimen.<\/p>\n

These features include flow lines, which are tiny ridges formed by molten iron that rippled across the meteor\u2019s surface as it heated up to tremendous temperatures while hurtling through Earth\u2019s thick atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can also see where little droplets that melted off part of the meteor actually hit the meteor again and left little splatter marks,\u201d Eatons says. \u201cThat\u2019s really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collectively, these features make up what\u2019s called the meteorite\u2019s \u201cfusion crust,\u201d and they show the meteor\u2019s orientation as it dropped from the sky.<\/p>\n

Intact fusion crusts are rarely found on iron meteorites that aren\u2019t freshly fallen, Eaton says. That\u2019s because the iron surface weathers quickly on Earth, essentially rusting away.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means it hasn\u2019t been on Earth that long,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at perhaps in the neighborhood of a few hundred years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eaton and her colleagues have been working on getting the meteorite classified, a process that involves detailed scientific analyses that undergo review just like any peer-reviewed research. The team includes Museum Director Rich Slaughter and Noriko Kita, a distinguished scientist and meteorite expert from UW\u2013Madison, along with Jim Holstein and Philipp Heck at the Chicago Field Museum. (Heck is a former UW\u2013Madison postdoctoral researcher.) Assuming no hiccups in the process, once it\u2019s officially classified, the meteorite will be known scientifically by its Vienna name.<\/p>\n

While the drive from Vienna EqHo Farm to UW\u2013Madison is short, the path the Vienna meteorite took to the museum was a long and winding one.<\/p>\n

Koch and Shepel suspected early on that what they had was a meteorite. Those suspicions were further fueled when Shepel\u2019s sister, Laurie Shepel, and brother-in-law, Joe Zanter, got a peek at it. A metallurgical engineer and UW\u2013Madison alumnus, Zanter sawed off a small piece of the rock for analysis, which confirmed the group\u2019s suspicions that the rock had a non-terrestrial origin.<\/p>\n

However, a case of poor timing meant the meteorite wouldn\u2019t get official recognition for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried to find somebody that was interested in it,\u201d says Jan Shepel. \u201cWe sent a lot of emails everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually, Zanter sent the small sample he took to the Chicago Field Museum, which officially confirmed it as a meteorite. But still, the rock sat for years in an outbuilding on Vienna EqHo Farm, protected under a pile of old carpeting as the four wondered why no one seemed as excited about it as they were.<\/p>\n

Finally, in 2023, Koch decided to contact the UW Geology Museum. Eaton, Slaughter and Kita paid the farm a visit and were immediately thrilled about the find.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just really fun for us to have someone finally get excited about it,\u201d says Shepel. \u201cWe had it sitting here all these years and were like, \u2018Why isn\u2019t anyone else as excited about this as we are?’\u201d<\/p>\n

Koch and Shepel knew then that they wanted the meteorite to go to the museum. That meant it would stay in one piece and remain nearby in a place with an educational mission. It also meant they and anyone else could visit and enjoy it at any time for free.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think about all the stones in those fields I\u2019ve picked up before this, and to come across this one is just mind-blowing,\u201d says Koch. \u201cI\u2019m just so happy to see it there at UW.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Written by Will Cushman<\/p>\n

Link to original story with more photos: https:\/\/news.wisc.edu\/exceptional-meteorite-plowed-up-from-a-dane-county-field-finds-new-home-in-uw-geology-museum\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VIENNA, Wis. \u2014 It was a balmy spring day in May 2009 when Jim Koch\u2019s plow kicked up an unusually hefty rock. Koch was prepping a field for alfalfa on his farm in the Town of Vienna just a short drive north of Madison. At first, he didn\u2019t notice the rock. But after stopping the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":10914,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[103],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-10912","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-madison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/10912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=10912"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=10912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}