Specimen weight: 343 grams

This beautiful meteorite fell on June 13, 1998 at ~7:30 am in the town of Portales, New Mexico. People witnessed a fireball and smoke trail falling from a clear sky. Over 50 stones fell that day in a shower that stretched about 4 miles long. The strewnfield is abnormal, in that the larger pieces all fell first and the smaller ones continued further downrange. This is thought to be caused by the late explosion of a larger piece as it fell. Portales is a very strange meteorite, some pieces were almost entirely metal, some an amazing mixture of stone and metal, and some were stones, with almost no metal at all. It turns out that it is classified as an H6 impact-melt breccia.

Portales Valley is a one of a kind meteorite, no others have ever been found resembling this meteorite. 

I spent almost one month in Portales, hunting meteorites with many other people, and had a blast. It was my first successful fall chase.