The Forgotten Meteorite Field Near Melbourne: The Cranbourne Meteorites

South-east of Melbourne lies one of Australia’s most remarkable extraterrestrial discoveries — the Cranbourne meteorite field. Scattered across the basalt plains of Victoria, these massive iron meteorites are fragments of a colossal asteroid that fell to Earth thousands of years ago.

The first recorded discovery came in 1854, when settlers unearthed an enormous metallic mass while ploughing farmland. Over time, more pieces were found — some weighing over 3 tonnes — making Cranbourne home to one of the world’s largest known iron meteorites.

Composed primarily of iron and nickel, these meteorites display the striking Widmanstätten pattern when cut and polished, revealing their slow crystallisation within the core of a long-destroyed planetary body. For the Boonwurrung people, the meteorites were already part of their cultural landscape long before European settlement.

Today, most of the Cranbourne meteorites reside in museums and collections, but their story remains a spectacular link between Victoria’s volcanic plains and the wider cosmos.