Meteorite found in Livingston County could be auctioned for more than $12K

Discovering a billions-of-years-old rock from outer space was a stroke of beginner's luck for a pair of first-time meteorite hunters.

Now they're waiting to see how much it will sell for at auction.

A meteorite that landed on a frozen Zukey Lake following a Jan. 16 meteor fireball event will be put up for auction in April by Christie's of London.

It is on display through Wednesday at the auction house's New York City location in Rockefeller Center, on exhibit in "Deep Impact: Martian, Lunar and other Rare Meteorites."

"We saw on the news a couple days after that people were finding meteorites, so we thought, why not us," said Ashley Moritz, of Royal Oak, who found the meteorite with her boyfriend and business partner, Christopher Rodgers.

That weekend, the amateur treasure hunters grabbed their metal detectors, not thinking they would actually find anything, and headed for Hamburg Township, where the majority of the Michigan meteorites fell.

They had found watches, diamond rings and a 1797 British half-penny on previous hunts. The meteorite is the most valuable thing they've ever discovered.

"The first day we didn't have any luck with our metal detectors, but then, the second day, I decided to just look with my eyes, and then I saw it in the snow. I was very excited and knew surely it was one," Moritz said. "It had the outside crust that is black, called a fusion crust, that is the part that is burnt when it comes into the atmosphere, and that had chips in it and there were beautiful colors inside."

Christie's informed her the opening bid at the April auction will be $12,000, she said.

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Scientists at the Cranbrook Institute of Science estimated the meteorite is about 4.5 billion years old.

It weighed 50.3 grams, a little less than two ounces.

Moritz said she is going to reinvest whatever money she earns from the sale into Green Eyes Estate Sales, a company she started about a year ago.

"And we'll probably go back out there (Hamburg Township) in the spring after the snow is gone to look for more," she said.

RELATED: Local meteorite hopefuls brave the cold in search of 'treasure'

An asteroid hit the Earth's atmosphere on the evening of Jan. 16, passing over metro Detroit at about 8:08 p.m. and creating a fireball seen across the southeastern part of the state before breaking up about 20 miles above the earth.

Bill Cooke, lead for NASA meteoroid environment office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, told The Livingston Daily the asteroid, was approximately 2 yards across, weighting perhaps 2 tons and hit the atmosphere at about 28,000 miles per hour.

The event inspired professional and amateur meteorite hunters to flock to the township, where most of the fragments of the meteor fell.

Darryl Pitt, a meteorite consultant to Christie's said the meteorite Moritz and Rodger found is "an important specimen" and is the first one that fell during the Jan. 16 event to go up for auction.

"Most people who look for meteorites don't find them," said Pitt, who is also curator of the Macovich Collection of Meteorites. "They are all exceptional and exceedingly rare. ...They fall equally over the planet, so most, about two-thirds, fall over the ocean, or in places that are hard to access, like in the mountains."

He said less than one kilogram of meteorites from the Jan. 16 event have been documented.

"The total weight is a small amount, and that drives up the demand and price," he said. "These things are worth more, the less total material there is. ...Its value is more than twice its weight in gold."

He said the Zukey Lake meteorite would sell for a minimum of $7,500, likely much more.

"Meteorites are highly collectible, and the Michigan meteorite is a hot collectible," he said.

For those who have been looking but haven't found any yet, Pitts said there is still hope.

"There are more out there," he said. "I think some of these would have gone through the roofs of summer cottages, so people will find out later."

Contact Livingston Daily reporter Jennifer Eberbach Timar at 517-548-7148 or at jeberbach@livingstondaily.com. Follow her on Facebook @Jen.Eberbach and Twitter @JenEberbach.