In 2015, a resident of Maryborough, Victoria, named David Hole, thought he had found a gold nugget in the Maryborough Regional Park. He spent years trying to crack it open, convinced it contained gold, until he finally discovered that it was far more valuable than he had ever imagined.
The rock wasn’t gold. It was a 4.6-billion-year-old meteorite, and the discovery was later published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. This meteorite had been traveling across the universe for billions of years before landing right at his feet.
The Turning Point
In May 2015, while prospecting for gold near Maryborough, Victoria, David Hole came across a dense and unusual rock lying in yellow clay, about 2 kilometers from the town. Intrigued by its weight and appearance, he continued to investigate. Three years later, in 2018, still unsure of its nature, Hole decided to bring the 38.5cm x 14.5cm x 14.5cm rock to Museums Victoria for expert analysis.
After further analysis, it was confirmed that the rock was not a gold nugget, but a rare meteorite. According to Dermot Henry, a geologist at the Melbourne Museum, the rock’s “dimpled, sculpted look” immediately suggested it had been through the fiery journey of entering Earth’s atmosphere.
“In some meteorites, there is ‘stardust’ even older than our Solar System, which shows us how stars form and evolve to create elements of the periodic table,” he noted. As a result, this meteorite was easily distinguishable from Earth rocks by its unusual surface.
A Cosmic Time Capsule: What the Meteorite Revealed
Once researchers carefully sliced a small section from the meteorite, they confirmed its composition: it was a H5 ordinary chondrite. According to the study, it’s a type of meteorite made up mostly of iron, and one of the oldest and most basic forms of meteorites known to scientists.
Inside, they found chondrules, tiny crystallized droplets of metal, which provide clues about the early Solar System, formed long before Earth even existed. In other words, the rock Hole had been toiling over for years wasn’t just an old chunk of space debris.
The photo shows a radial pyroxene chondrule from the Maryborough meteorite, displayed with fragments and an identification label. Credit: Victoria Museums
The Goldfields Hide a Rare Gem
What makes this meteorite so special, beyond its age and composition, is its rarity. Only 17 meteorites have ever been recorded in the state of Victoria, and this one is the second-largest chondrite discovered there, after a 55-kilogram specimen found in 2003.
“This is only the 17th meteorite found in Victoria, whereas there’s been thousands of gold nuggets found,” Henry told Channel 10 News. “Looking at the chain of events, it’s quite, you might say, astronomical it being discovered at all.”
While gold is often discovered in the area, meteorites are another matter entirely. Victoria isn’t known for its meteorite finds—after all, the odds of a chunk of space rock landing in the right place at the right time are pretty slim. As Henry points out, there have been thousands of gold nuggets discovered in the region, but meteorites like this one are much harder to come by.
Even more incredible is the fact that it sat undisturbed for so many years before anyone realized what it was. Scientists are still uncertain about the exact time the meteorite landed, but carbon dating suggests it could have arrived anywhere between 100 and 1,000 years ago. In fact, multiple meteor sightings in the region between 1889 and 1951 may correspond to its arrival.