Lafayette Meteorite: A Piece of Black History

In 1929, someone opened a drawer in Purdue’s biology department and realized a corn-pone-sized rock, glassy-black-like with thin visible flow lines and a glint of gold on one side was not an ordinary Earth rock. They packed it up and sent it to Chicago’s Field Museum for identification.

Officials at the museum confirmed it to be a meteorite. Its minerals didn’t match Indiana’s and its exterior showed signs that it survived the extreme heat of coming through Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds. In the 1980s, gases within it – and other rare meteorite materials – were matched to samples brought back from NASA’s Viking expeditions to Mars.

It returned in 2019 for Purdue’s Homecoming, but its journey has layers of mystery.

“1.3 billion years ago, it flowed as a lava flow on the surface of Mars,” according to Purdue professor Anthony Freed. “700 million years ago, it was immersed in salt water, because we can tell by the way the minerals are altered, and there’s actually still salt in it. 10 million years ago, an asteroid hit the surface of Mars and actually knocked it off of the surface into orbit around the Sun. And 2,900 years ago, it intercepted Earth’s orbit and fell through our atmosphere.”

Then it ended up in a drawer at Purdue. It didn’t walk its way into the drawer. And as fascinating as the clues about Mars locked inside are to science, so also are clues about how it may have ended up at the university; clues that reveal more through Indiana’s agricultural and black history.

Thanks to pig vomit and scientific sleuthing by a curious researcher at the University of Glasgow, some connections credibly link the Lafayette Meteorite to one of four black students at Purdue early in the 20th century.

The rock’s history began with an intriguing legend: a black student at Purdue University supposedly witnessed the meteorite’s fiery descent, retrieving it from a muddy pond where it landed. But with no records to confirm this tale, the truth seemed lost to time.

Enter Dr. Áine O’Brien, an environmental and planetary organic geochemist at the University of Glasgow. According to the BBC, in 2020, while analyzing a tiny fragment of the Lafayette meteorite, she stumbled upon an unexpected compound – deoxynivalenol (DON), commonly known as vomitoxin.

“Most of them [compounds in the meteorite] had really long, boring chemistry data-type names but one was called a vomitoxin which I thought sounded cool so I started looking into it,” O’Brien recalled.

Her serendipitous discovery set off a chain of interdisciplinary detective work. Vomitoxin, or DON, is produced by a fungus that infects grain crops, causing severe illness in animals – particularly pigs. But how did this earthly contaminant end up on a Martian rock?

O’Brien reached out to Dr. Marissa Tremblay, an assistant professor at Purdue, to dig deeper. Together with university archivists, they pieced together a compelling narrative.

Historical records revealed significant crop blights in Indiana in 1919 and 1927, coinciding with reported fireball sightings in the region. These dates aligned perfectly with the presence of four black students at Purdue during that era: Julius Lee Morgan, Clinton Edward Shaw, Hermanze Edwin Fauntleroy and Clyde Silance.

While we may never know for certain which of these students made the extraordinary discovery, O’Brien’s research has shed new light on this long-standing mystery.

“Lafayette is a truly beautiful meteorite sample which has taught us a lot about Mars through previous research,” she noted. “So, for that alone, they deserve the credit, right? You then add in the fact that they were an African-American student at a university that had so few. We all know the stories of racism in 1920s America.”

This fascinating blend of planetary science, agriculture and social history demonstrates the unexpected connections that can emerge from scientific inquiry. The Lafayette meteorite, once a silent artifact, now tells a rich story of cosmic journeys, agricultural challenges and the often-overlooked contributions of black students in early 20th century America.

As we continue to explore the mysteries of Mars, the Lafayette meteorite serves as a reminder that sometimes, the key to unlocking the secrets of distant worlds can be found in the most unlikely places – even in the biology of pig digestion.

A note on Black History Month. It is a national tradition founded by historian Carter G. Woodson, Ph.D. in 1926. What began as Negro History Week to educate people on the contributions of black Americans in science, arts, politics and religion developed into a national month of uncovering more about historical contributions. In 1975, President Gerald Ford became the first president to officially proclaim Black History Week. The following year, February was chosen as Black History Month because it was the birth month of Abraham Lincoln and the chosen birthday month of Frederick Douglass. See more at the Library of Congress.

The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan, multi-issue political organization which encourages informed and active participation in government. For information about the League, visit the website www.lwvmontcoin.org; or, visit the League of Women Voters of Montgomery County, Indiana Facebook page.